Blood Feuds in Albania: Your Grandfather's Enemy Is Your Enemy Today

13 min read

Last updated: 8 July 2026

Photo: Albania - William John Gauthier

In Albania, a fight that started 50 years ago can still kill you today. If your grandfather killed a man in 1975, the dead man's family may still want blood from your family. They can target your father, your uncle, your brother, or you. This is the rule of "gjakmarrja" — blood vengeance — under the old Albanian customary code, the Kanun. Albania blood feuds pass through male family lines for generations. They do not stop with time. They stop only when the families reconcile, or when one side has no men left.[1]

This article explains how Albania blood feuds work, why people self-isolate in their homes, and why the police often cannot help. It looks at the legal recognition of blood feud asylum claims in the UK, Germany, and other countries. For asylum decision-makers and expert witnesses, it explains why an Albanian male fleeing a feud has a real and ongoing fear of harm.

The Kanun: A Code of Honour and Blood

The Kanun is a body of customary law from northern Albania. Its most famous version is the Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit — the Code of Lekë Dukagjini — named after a 15th-century Albanian noble. The Kanun was passed orally for centuries before it was written down by Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi in the early 20th century. It covers many topics: marriage, property, hospitality, and conflict. Its most known parts deal with honour and blood.[2]

Hasmëria: The State of Enmity

Under the Kanun, when a man kills another man, the killer's family enters a state of enmity ("hasmëria") with the family of the victim. This state continues until blood is taken back. The traditional way to take back blood is by killing a male of the killer's family. Under strict Kanun rules, only male relatives are valid targets. Women and children were traditionally protected.[3]

However, modern feuds in Albania often break these old rules. Children, teenagers, and sometimes women have been killed. The Kanun was suppressed for decades during communist rule (1944-1991). When the communist system collapsed, blood feuds re-emerged in the chaos of the 1990s. Many of the modern feuds do not follow the original rules carefully.

Key Kanun Concepts

• Besa — a sacred promise or truce. A family in hasmëria can request a besa, a temporary peace, often for 30 days, sometimes longer.
• Gjakmarrja — blood-taking. The act of killing someone from the offending family.
• Pajtimi — reconciliation. A formal end to the feud through a meeting of family heads, often with mediators.
• Ngujim — self-imprisonment. The killer's family stays inside their house to avoid being killed.

How Long Do Feuds Last?

There is no time limit on a blood debt. A feud can pass to a son, a grandson, even a great-grandson. As long as a male of the offending family lives, he can be a target. Some feuds in Albania are documented across five or more generations. Researchers have found feuds with origins in the 1920s still active in the 2020s.[4]

The Committee of Nationwide Reconciliation, an Albanian NGO, has tracked many cases. In one case, a young man in Shkodër was a target because his grandfather killed a man in 1965. The grandfather later died of natural causes. The grandson, born after the original killing, became the next target under the Kanun rule. He had never met the dead man's family. He had never been to the place where the killing happened. He still faced the threat.

This generational reach makes Albania blood feuds different from many other forms of violence. They are not personal. The young man is not targeted because he did anything. He is targeted because of who his ancestors were.

Why Escape Inside Albania Does Not Work

Albania is a small country of about 2.8 million people. Family identity is strong. Surnames are often regional. People can identify a person's family origin from a name, an accent, or a village. A man who flees a feud in Shkodër cannot easily disappear in Tirana. Word travels. Cousins, friends, and acquaintances may know about him. A family at war can pay a small sum for information. People sometimes give that information for free.[5]

Tirana, the capital, has grown rapidly. It now holds about a third of the country's population. Many people in feuds try to hide there. But the city is not anonymous. Families maintain memory. They know who is alive, who has moved, who has children. The Kanun encourages such memory. A family that forgets its blood debt is seen as weak.

Some families self-isolate for many years. Men stay inside their homes for decades. They cannot work. They cannot shop. They cannot attend funerals or weddings. Their children grow up without going to school normally. NGOs deliver food and books. The Albanian Ministry of Education has tried home schooling programmes for children of self-isolated families. The programmes are limited and irregular.[6]

Documented Feud Killings by Year

The number of feud-related killings has fallen since the peak of the 1990s and early 2000s, but the problem has not ended. Albanian Ministry of Interior figures and NGO data suggest the following pattern.

The fall in killings does not mean feuds have ended. It often means families self-isolate more strictly. A feud that produces no death because the targets stay locked in their houses still ruins lives. Children miss years of school. Men cannot earn a living. The fear remains.

Modern Complications

Urban Migration

Many Albanians have moved from rural northern areas to Tirana, Durrës, and abroad. The feuds have followed them. Researchers have documented feud killings in Tirana neighbourhoods that originated in remote villages decades earlier. Albanian diaspora communities in Italy, Greece, the UK, and Germany also continue the feuds in some cases. There are recorded cases of feud killings in London and Athens that began in northern Albanian villages.[7]

Organised Crime Crossover

Some modern feuds mix family blood vengeance with organised crime. A drug trade dispute can become a "blood feud" claim later, sometimes used to gain sympathy. Decision-makers in asylum cases are aware of this risk. Genuine feuds, however, follow recognisable patterns: a documented original killing, ongoing self-isolation, recognition by reconciliation NGOs, and absence of police protection.

Long Self-Isolation

The Committee of Nationwide Reconciliation has documented families where men have stayed inside their houses for over 20 years. Some children have spent their entire childhood inside one building. Their world is the courtyard. Their education comes from books and television. Their physical and mental health suffers.[8]

State Response

Albania does not have a specific anti-feud law. Murder is illegal under the Albanian Criminal Code, and Article 78/a of the Code (added in 2013) treats blood feud as an aggravating factor that can lead to a life sentence. In practice, many feud killings are charged under standard murder articles. Convictions are common, but they do not end the feud. The killer goes to prison; the next male in the family becomes the target.[9]

Police protection for feud-affected families is limited. Officers cannot follow a man around for years. Witness protection schemes are weak in Albania, and they are designed for criminal trial witnesses, not feud targets. Once a family is publicly known to be in feud, it is hard to live a normal life.

Reconciliation committees are the main path out. The Pajtimi committees, often led by older respected men or priests, mediate between families. They can bring decades-long feuds to an end. But they need both sides to agree. Sometimes one side refuses to reconcile. Then the feud continues.

Self-confined families in northern Albania live in conditions of severe deprivation. Children miss years of school. Men cannot work. The state has not built an effective protection system for these families.
OSCE Presence in Albania, Report on Blood Feuds and Self-Isolation (2018)

International Recognition in Asylum Law

Asylum claims based on Albania blood feuds have a long record in European courts. UK, German, Belgian, Dutch, Swiss, and other tribunals have heard them. The leading recent UK case is EH (blood feud) Albania CG [2012] UKUT 348 (IAC), which set country guidance on the issue. The Upper Tribunal accepted that genuine blood feuds exist, that they can target male relatives across generations, and that internal relocation can be unsafe. The Tribunal also stressed that not every claim is genuine and that careful evidence is essential.[10]

More recent cases such as TD and AD (Trafficked women) Albania CG [2016] UKUT 92 (IAC) deal with related but separate gendered persecution issues. The 2012 EH guidance remains the leading authority on male-targeted blood feud claims. Appeals continue to test the boundaries of the guidance, particularly on internal relocation to Tirana and on the role of the police.[11]

German federal courts (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) have also recognised Albanian blood feuds as a basis for protection in cases where state protection is not effective. Belgian and Dutch tribunals have done the same. The cumulative case law shows that genuine feud claims, when supported by evidence, can succeed.

Implications for Asylum

For asylum decision-makers, Albania blood feud cases need three layers of evidence:

1. Evidence of the original incident — police reports, court records, news articles, family records, or affidavits from village elders
2. Evidence that the feud is ongoing — letters from reconciliation committees, witness statements, recent threats, social media activity by the opposing family
3. Evidence on relocation and state protection — country reports, expert reports on the reach of the feud and the limits of police protection

The PSG ("particular social group") under the 1951 Convention is usually expressed as "male family members of [X family] involved in a blood feud." Some cases also rely on "family" itself as a PSG, under the well-established principle that family is a recognised social unit. Internal relocation must be specifically considered, with attention to Tirana. For more on building cases, see the asylum guide and the country reports section.[12]

Female relatives of male feud targets can also have valid claims. Although the Kanun traditionally protects women, modern feuds increasingly affect them. Mothers, sisters, and daughters live in fear, share self-isolation, and lose access to school and work. Their claims may rest on related but distinct PSGs and on the wider gendered impact of feuds. The human rights dimension of these cases reaches well beyond the men who are direct targets.

Conclusion

Albania blood feuds are not a relic of the past. They are a current reality for hundreds of families in Albania and in the diaspora. The Kanun rules pass blood debts through generations. A man can be killed today for what his grandfather did in 1975. He can be killed at home, in another city, or abroad if the opposing family finds him. The state offers little real protection. Reconciliation committees do good work, but they need both families to want peace. Many do not.

For asylum decision-makers, the picture is clear. A genuine feud claim, supported by evidence of an original incident, ongoing threats, and limits of state protection, qualifies under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Family is a recognised social group. Internal relocation often does not work. Country guidance from the UK Upper Tribunal and from German and other European courts supports the conclusion. The grandfather's enemy can still be the grandson's enemy. International protection is, in many cases, the only safe answer.

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