Gjilan, 11 January 2026
On the 42nd anniversary of the fall of the two prominent political and national activists, Rexhep Malaj and Nuhi Berisha, the Acting Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, accompanied by the Mayor of the Municipality of Gjilan, Alban Hyseni, newly elected members of the Assembly and associates, visited the Malaj and Berisha families in Gjilan.
Rexhep Malaj was a leading member of the clandestine organization the Movement for the Albanian Republic in Yugoslavia (MARY), while Nuhi Berisha was the head of MARY’s Operational HQ for the University of Prishtina.
On the evening of 11 January 1984, the Yugoslav police undertook an operation to capture Rexhep and Nuhi, surrounding them in a house where they had taken shelter, in the Vranjec neighborhood (now ‘Kodra e Trimave’) in Prishtina. Rexhep and Nuhi resisted with arms, and after midnight both were killed. Their fall, as commitment and struggle for freedom up to self-sacrifice, was experienced as an ideal example by fellow activists and by the Albanian people, in Kosovo occupied by Serbia under Yugoslavia.
Glory to Rexhep Malaj and Nuhi Berisha!
