It is as if we were Buried Alive
Increasingly Difficult Situation of Refugees from Kosmet in Kragujevac Settlement Bresnica
 

Danas, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, December 27 1999

11:53 AM Wed 5 Jan
Danas [Today] is an opposition daily published in Belgrade
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On the spot
Increasingly Difficult Situation of Refugees from Kosmet in Kragujevac Settlement Bresnica
 
"It is as if we were Buried Alive"
 
by Zoran Radovanovic
Danas, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, December 27 1999
 
During the last few weeks and days the group of 200 persons expelled from Metohija and now living in the collective center in Bresnica has been freezing most of the time. Besides space heaters, which are more frequently broken than working, they have no other source of heat
 
Kragujevac - In the corner, next to a double metal door, and right next to a TV set (a cartoon is on) and a space heater which is blowing warm air, a crowd of children, 2-3 to 5-6 years old is crouching, jostling, and from time to time, jumping. They are kept company by several adult men, dressed as if they were about to go skiing. Women are busily doing something a few steps away, while the cold is barging in from everywhere: through half closed doors and large glass panes. The snow on the tin roof is melting under the cold December sun and the water is leaking through...
     This was the scene a few days ago in the collective center (a store owned by the supermarket chain PKB) in the Kragujevac settlement Bresnica. There, a group of 200 refugees from Metohija has been trying to somehow survive for almost six months. Among them there are 95 children of preschool and primary school age. During the last few days this group of persons expelled from Metohija has been freezing since, besides space heaters which are more frequently broken than working, they have no other source of heat.
 
Children are Crying and Coughing
 
"It is the hardest at night. Children are crying and coughing. There is a draft and water is leaking everywhere. Some sort of wet cold is coming from the concrete floor... This is a tragedy. Two hundred of us entered alive in a grave. And this shouldn't have happened to us. My brothers and myself have been for months on the front in Metohija and here we are, under a thin layer of tin, in the middle of a winter," says for Danas Milorad Ilic (37) from Djakovica. During the night between Wednesday and Thursday, sometimes 'round midnight, he took his feverish six-year-old son Nemanja to a friend's place so that he could be in warmth for a while. Milorad wanted to avoid another family tragedy: in August his niece Vesna (Ilic) found a tragic end in the bathroom of the nearby soccer club Slavija.
     He worries that the refugees from Metohija could freeze to death in Bresnica or, in the best possible case, fall ill en masse until their problems with heating and (un)sanitary and inhuman living conditions in PKB's supermarket are sorted out. He accuses the state and its government for the situation shared by him and his fellow two hundred refugees. He testifies that the Serbian police pillaged everything while it was in Metohija. "Full trucks of goods and valuables were shipped by policemen from Djakovica and Pec to Montenegro. We remained as poor as we were before the war," claims Ilic.
     "We must bear our fate, and it is a horrible fate. We are day and night on this concrete floor, space heaters are getting broken and fuses burning all the time. The children have it the worst. We adults can somehow pull through," adds Mila Petkovic (45), also from Djakovica. She left in Djakovica a three-storied house and memories of good life and good relations with Albanians. "Our first neighbor, an Albanian, saw us off with tears in his eyes," she says and claims that "all of this happened because of politicians".
 
It is President's Fault
 
Recently, says Mila Petkovic, she dialed her phone number in Djakovica. A woman picked up the phone. An ethnic Albanian. "I said 'Mirdita' [Good day], she said 'mirdita'. I asked 'A jeni mir?' [How are you doing?], and she replied with the same words and asked who I was and what I wanted. I said that that was my house and she responded 'No it isn't. Now it is mine'. I couldn't take it anymore so I hung up," says Mila Petkovic and claims that Albanians from Djakovica did not break into her house because she knows them well and had good relations with them. She claims that the new "tenants" in her house are farmers, most likely from Albania.
     In spite of all of that, Mila Petkovic would like to return to Djakovica, since she does not consider her current conditions worth living. "I would return with my family, if only someone could guarantee peace. We can have one meal a day, but let it be peace... We cannot take this anymore," she says and adds with resignation that the fate of expelled individuals will be from now on "decided by others".
     A young man, who introduces himself as Zoran, would also return to his hometown of Suva Reka. He is in exile with two small children and a wife. Zoran blames the president of this country for his fate and the fate of other refugees from Metohija. He believes that he (the president of this state) "should not end up in the Hague, but should be crucified in the center of Belgrade".
     Todor Djordjevic (57), another inhabitant of Suva Reka, does not talk about return but he is also having a horrible time in the collective center in Bresnica. Especially at night when the temperature drops below zero, when children cry and cough, and wet cold barges in from all sides...

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