And Still They Come - Kosovo Albanian border
And Still They Come - Kosovo /Albanian border
Story & Photos by Andy Rain
Spring has arrived in the Balkans. The warm weather will dry out
the earth and atleast bring some basic comfort to the hundreds of
thousands of Kosovar refugees that find themselves languishing in a
trail of tent cities that have sprung up along Kosovo's borders with
Macedonia and Albania.
"Get me out of here", says Baria, 29, an articulate administration
student from Pristina, the Kosovo capital, when I arrived in Stankovec
camp in early April. She is one of approximately 130,000 refugees who
were forced to flee their homes to Macedonia since Nato began bombing
Serb forces in Kosovo and throughout other parts of Yugoslavia.
In what aid agencies describe as the biggest forced movement of
peoples in Europe since the aftermath of the Second World War, ethnic
Albanian refugees carrying what little they could brought with them
horrrifying reports of massacers and of ethnic cleansing not seen on a
scale since the Serbs swept through Bosnia in 1992.
There had been so many warnings from Nato that they would stike the
Serbs for their advance against Albanian rebels the KLA (Kosovo
Liberation Army) that has made half a million Kosvar Albanians
displaced within their own land, so many false alarms that when Nato
finally commenced bombing March 24th no one could hardly believe it.
"It was for the sake of humanity", said British prime minister Tony
Blair, but after a few days of continuous strikes against Serb
positions, the unexpected happened in Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic, the
Serbian President did not back down, he went on the rampage.
Serb paramilitaries went house to house in Prsitina and other towns
driving out their ethnic Albanian inhabitants. Nobody expected what
would happen next.
"They gave us 10 minutes to leave our houses and to make our way to
the train station", Baria told me as we sat on a wet bank overlooking
Stankovec camp, which is housing Approximately 15,000 to 20,000
refugees. Rows and rows of green and white army tents have become the
homes of doctors, dentists, celebrities, students, farmers and
peasents alike. Everybody who has managed to stay alive, to escape the
horrors that are now symbolic of Kosovo now find themselves in the
same boat.
Heavy rain clouds roll in from the west indicating a wet night for
the people of Stankovec. "I was lucky to get here with my family",
Baria told me, " so many people have been seperated and split up. Now
I must get out, so I can arrange through the Red Cross to release my
family", her face sullen, looking down at the mass of humanity below.
Women washed clothes, old men lay motionless outside their tents, kids
played soccer. John, my Canadian colleague and I told her we would do
what we could to help her.
In Brazda camp, a kilometer down the road toward Skopje, the
Macedonian capital, things aren't much better. Nearly 2000 tents house
another 25,000 people who have fled Kosovo. "We built this camp in 36
hours", says Captain Bill Soper from the British Army. "I don't know
what would have happened if Nato wasn't here to help these people when
they arrived". The UNHCR and relief organisations have been completely
swamped by the refugee influx that continues by the thousand everyday.
In the middle of the camp a long line of people wait to sign up for
flights abroad. Germany, Turkey, Israel and Greece are just some of
the countries that are excepting reugees on a temporary basis until
they are able to return to Kosovo. "I won't go", Baria tells me the
next day in Stankovec. "People waited all day in the rain today for
flights abroad, but I won't go, I want to be close to Kosovo so I can
go back after this is all over".
" Do you get enough food to eat", I ask her.
"They give us one loaf of bread between four people, tinned foods such
as tuna and beef and milk, but I don't think of food here.
I just think about getting out".
The people of Brazda, many who have relatives in Stankovec feel the
same way. A high wire fence seperates loved ones, relatives and
friends who come to visit the refuges daily. Watchful Macedonian
soldiers man the gate, checking ID's to make sure no refugees smuggle
themselves into Skopje. The Macedonian government has been highly
critical of Nato countires for not anticipating the huge refugee
influx and for not sharing the burden of housing them, worrisome of
its own fragile ethnic balance of Macedonians, Serbs and ethnic
Albanians that make up 25% of Macedonia's population.
At the fence ethnic Albanian's seperated after Macedonian police
forced 40,000 refugees out of Blace camp in the middle of the night in
early April, stand either side of Brazda's perimeter. Divided by the
wire whose small tri-angular holes allow only finger length contact,
one sister holds her 2 year old child as she talks to her sister on
the otherside. The child's Aunt weeping, cries out for a chance to
hold her niece. Further down the fence out of view from the Macedonian
guards,a group of young Albanians have ripped up the fence from the
ground, dug out the soil from beneath it and sensing their chance to
escape crawl out to freedom when the guards aren't looking. Scores of
refugees are getting out daily as tension in the camps increases.
Driven by their days of terror in as the Serbs forced them out of
the province the trauma of their last days in Kosovo has fueled cries
for revenge upon Serbia. Ethnic hatred makes for a frightening future.
I saw this in the eyes of young ethnic Albanian boys and girls one
morning in Brazda as they marched through the camp wearing UCK (KLA)
headbands and cying," UCK, Nato, UCK, Nato", punching two finger
victory salutes into the air. Young faces expressing pain and anger.
Such faces provided me a glimpse of what they had been through to get
here, but more clearly offered a view of the Balkan future. These kids
aging from 5 to 15 years old were making a bolder statement than were
Milosevic with his brutality and Nato with their air power. Their
faces painted a picture as clear as day, that compromise between Serbs
and Kosovo's Albanian's now had no meaning whatsoever. Their future
seemed to be saying," KIll OR BE KILLED".
"We have good news for you", John and I told Baria in Stankovec the
next day. "We going to get you out of here". We told her to clean
herself up, put some clean denims on and black boots. We gave her a
black Nike baseball cap and balck shades. She wore a black body
warmer. She was perfect, your cliche translator, reporter. She would
walk out the gate with us.
At that moment Musa gently put his hand on my shoulder. Musa Halil,
54, a soft faced gentle natured Kosovar from Pristina had been my
lanlord for two months while covering the war there last summer. His
story was similar to that of Baria's. He had been given 10 minutes to
leave his house or he would be killed."Your place is in Albania", the
Serbs told him. He had tired to get to Macedonia by car but was topped
by masked paramilitaries. Everyone was beaten, had their money and car
keys stolen and told to walk bak to Pristina, a 4 km walk.
" I was lucky", Musa told me. " I was the last car in the convoy, the
Serb police were so tired after beating all the other men they didn't
have the strength to beat me much". He showed me the purple marks on
his upper arm. He arrived at Stankovec 4 days later by train. I asked
him of his children. "One son has gone to Turkey, the other is with
the KLA and my daughter I have not seen, she was lost in the chaos",
he told me, tears filling his eyes. Baria translated.
Another 3000 refugees arrived that afternoon as we made our way
toward the gate. Baria looked nervous. We stopped to interview some of
the new arrivals. They stepped off buses that brought them in from the
border, five lilometers away. Veteran refugees watched as the new
arrivals stumbled through the camp, tired, dehydrated, some call out
but most are somber. AND STILL THEY COME. A group of young girls
recognize their friends, they run to eachother and stand their hugging
and weeping, their faces buried in oneanothers shoulders. Then they
collapse in a bundel of broken lives onto the wet muddy earth, saying
nothing, thier heads in their hands. One young boy said he saw Serb
Special police going house to house, Serb civilian helped burn them.
" All my friends from my part of Urosevac went to the KLA, I wanted to
go but I am too young". I couldn't believe a ten year old was saying
this.
Upon arriving at the Stankovec's camp gate we handed our Nato
accreditations to the guard on duty. Baria stood beside me, silent,
hiding behind her baseball cap and black shades. He looked at our
papers, then lifted his head to look into our faces.
"Translator", I said, pointing to Baria.
"Ok", he repied, waving us through. Baria's face softened, she was
relieved. Twenty minutes later we are sat drinking beer in the lively
Dal Met Fu Cafe in the heart of Skopje.
"How's it feel to be outside those fences", I ask her.
"I don't know, I feel as though part of me is till there".
She left 10 minutes later to meet friends and to begin her journey to
the south of Macedonia.
Meanwhile the war goes on with no end in sight. Baria's life and
thousands of others will never be the same again. The struggle to
survive and to rebuild new lives in foreign countries has only just
begun. Time has a way of healing, but after this one can only wonder
if that will ever be possible.
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