Wednesday, October 20, 1999Kosovars Long for Real Roofs Again
Balkans: Returnees welcome aid but complain of the shortage of building supplies.
By DAVID HOLLEY, Times Staff Writer
MEDVECE, Yugoslavia--The ethnic Albanian men picking up home-winterizing materials at a distribution center in this village in southern Kosovo were frustrated and angry.
"This isn't material to build a roof," complained Miftar Elshani, whose home was gutted by fire last spring when Serbian forces drove ethnic Albanians out of this war-torn province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic. "It's only plastic sheets and sticks. The winter here is very strong. The wind can blow the plastic sheets away."
Elshani and his friends--like many of the 700,000 Kosovars whose homes were damaged or destroyed before NATO forced Serbian troops from the separatist province in June--want aid organizations to help them move back under solid roofs in their own homes by the time winter comes.
But the central goal of the humanitarian program in Kosovo is more modest: simply to get people through the winter. Aid agencies hope to do this by ensuring that every family has at least one winterized room, or a heated all-weather tent, or a host family. For the most part, help in rebuilding homes will have to wait until spring.
Organizations such as the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees are pleading for people to understand that there are imits to how much can be accomplished before the bitter Balkan winter sets in.
"Among some Albanians, their expectations are extremely high, and we are reminding people that UNHCR is not a reconstruction agency," said Peter Kessler, the refugee agency spokesman in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. "We're providing them emergency assistance to get them through the winter."Kits to Give Houses a Single Livable Room
A key part of the aid arsenal is a basic shelter kit aimed at making a single room of a burned-out house warm and livable. The U.N. refugee agency, the European Community Humanitarian Office and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are distributing 60,000 of these kits, along with an additional 30,000 roofing sets that contain wooden beams and plastic sheeting, Kessler said.
"We've distributed these kits before, in [Bosnia-Herzegovina]," Kessler said. "They really kept people alive and warm through the winter. They do work."
Under the most pressure are people such as Tahir Neziri, who spent the summer with his family in a thin canvas tent brought back from a refugee camp in Macedonia. Wintering in that tent--which was pitched not far from the burned-out shell of his home in the hard-hit Drenica region--is "out of the question," he said.
Aid organizations are bringing 15,000 heated all-weather tents into Kosovo--enough for 90,000 people. So for families like the Neziris, there should at least be a warm tent to move into.
Also, many ethnic Albanians whose homes were destroyed have found shelter with relatives or friends, or by breaking into apartments or houses, especially in Pristina and other cities, that belong to Serbs who have fled Kosovo. While such solutions are not permanent or attractive, they mean that no one is expected to face a life-threatening lack of shelter.
Still, crowded living conditions could contribute to higher death rates among elderly people and infants from problems such as respiratory ailments. And in the ruined villages of Kosovo, few are happy at the prospect of simply making it through the winter alive. People have their minds on reconstruction, not survival.
"We are glad we were able to come back, and we will stay here no matter what. But when the children start crying on a rainy night, it's difficult," said Mehmet Krasniqi, one of Elshani's friends.
"Whatever they are giving us, we are grateful for," said another man in the crowd at the distribution center. "But this is very little. . . . Only [plastic sheeting and] five wooden sticks! We need proper material."
Instead of roofing material, the men were getting waterproofing kits, with wooden poles intended only to hold down plastic so rain or melting snow won't leak in.
Elshani and the men with him wanted far more.
"In other villages, other organizations sent proper reconstruction materials, including wood and red tiles for the roofs," Elshani said.
Some members of Elshani's family are camped out in a tent in the family courtyard. Others are sleeping in leaky rooms, lacking any glass in the windows, inside the once-beautiful family home. It was burned, Elshani said, when Serbian forces attacked the village March 28.
A ground-floor room escaped destruction in the fire--so the family already has the one warm space that is the relief organizations' minimum standard. But the room is far from big enough to house all those living in the tent and the burned-out home: Elshani, his wife, four sons, two daughters-in-law, one daughter and four grandchildren.
"I just want to rebuild three rooms and the roof--nothing else," Elshani said.
Perhaps worst for Elshani is his sense of loss. Having started out as a poor farmer, he earned extra money driving his tractor for neighbors, then bought a truck and drove it for hire. The truck now is a burned-out hulk, just like his home.
"I saved for 40 years," he said. "Just when we had everything set in place, the Serbs came and burned it all."
Elshani looks with deep envy at southern Kosovo communities such as Musutiste and Celina, where he knows that humanitarian organizations have already started helping with roof reconstruction.One Community Gets Supplies Plus Architect
In Musutiste, one of the hardest hit, the German aid organization Cap Anamur is donating 400 permanent roofing sets, complete with strong wooden beams, red roofing tiles and a German architect who is helping supervise reconstruction.
Musutiste--which had fewer than 2,000 homes, 1,050 of them now burned out--won its current turn for the better by aggressively searching out an organization willing to make a major commitment.
The German contingent of the multinational peacekeeping force in Kosovo "offered to build the roofs for 80 houses, but we refused that because we didn't want to have a quarrel among residents over which ones would be chosen," said Musutiste Mayor Demiri Halit. "We went to Prizren, Pristina, wherever we heard there were NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], and explained our situation to them. Cap Anamur was the one who decided to help us."
Haxhi Shala, 43, one of those in Musutiste who is receiving Cap Anamur's help, said "the main thing is, we are back on our land, and we're grateful for the help we're receiving and we think things will be OK."
Across the street, the unrelated family of Fazile Shala, 76, is also putting a fine new roof on its burned-out three-story home--and trying to look to the future.
"When I came back [after the war ended], the only thing I found was a chicken," Fazile Shala said. "When I saw it I was sad, but at the same time I was glad because something was alive. I said to the chicken, 'Did you look after my house?'
"I saw all the houses burned, the dog killed in the basement, and everything looted. All my sons worked for 30 years, and everything they saved up was burned. I'm telling them now: 'You cannot rebuild all at once. Do it bit by bit, room by room.' "Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times
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