Graves Dug Too Soon: A Kosovo War Survivor’s Story

 Bujar Haradinaj carries seven wounds in his body—and a thousand more in his soul. A former soldier of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), he bears the physical scars of war and the invisible weight of survival. In a powerful testimony, he shared a moment that defined the brutality of the conflict—and the fragility of life itself.

Bujar Haradinaj

"I was severely wounded," Bujar recalls, his voice heavy with memory. "Three of my closest comrades died—my best men. I had around seven wounds from shrapnel, one in the neck, in the main artery. It was bad... real bad."

The situation was so dire that preparations were made for his burial. “There was an offensive going on. Two of my friends died—one on the spot, one in the hospital, and the third later. All three were buried,” he explains. “Ramush [Haradinaj] told the others, ‘Dig four graves—we don’t know if Bujar will make it.’”

They dug his grave. And yet, somehow, against all odds, he lived.

Today, Bujar stands not just as a survivor of war, but as a living testament to resilience. His voice doesn’t carry hatred—it carries weight. The kind that comes from walking through fire and returning to tell the story.

In another chilling moment, he described how a sniper’s bullet tore through his jaw and exited through the other side of his head—without causing fatal damage. “It was like fate paused death for a second and let me keep going,” he says, almost disbelieving himself.

On the left, the hero Agim Selmanaj, and on the right, Bujar Haradinaj in Dukagjin, when they served in the war against Serbia.

Bujar Haradinaj's story is more than a memory of war. It’s a reminder of the human cost behind the headlines, the sacrifices etched into the bodies of those who fought, and the graves dug not just for the dead—but for the dying who somehow refused to go.