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Kosovo
- In 1999, in order to stop the "ethnic cleansing" of Albanians in Yugoslavia's southern area of Kosovo, NATO began bombing Serb positions in the north and south.
In the quaint agricultural village of Krushe e Vogl, where Serbs and Albanians had lived peacefully side by side for years, the start of NATO bombing sparked a rash of killing by the Serbs, who knew their days were numbered.
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They said that at the top of the road, the Serbs had pulled the men and all of the boys over 14 to the right. Our Albanian women begged them as friends, “Please, let our men go,” but they did not. The Serbs had covered their faces with masks, but the women knew their voices. The Serbs told the women, “You do not have a choice—only the opportunity to go to the river to kill yourselves.”
Later, we heard that the Serbs had put 119 men and boys, all of those of the Krushe village, into a house, poured acid on them and then shot them all. Six men who lay underneath the others, escaped before the Serbs set the house on fire.
…The war ended on June 9, 1999. There were no men in the village of Krushe, but there was much work to do. I was involved with the organization of Motrat Qiriazi and we began our work with the 81 widows and the girls of this village…"
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| "I was born
in the village of Break Drini, on the Drini-Bar River. As a
child, the river was very clear and it was always the best place
where we felt we had the greatest emotions. I was a big fisher-girl
and I swam very well. But, because of what happened on this
river during the war, I will never again look at the river in
the same way.” |
This is an excerpt of Marte's story as written for the Women and War
Project.
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"...When the bombing started on March 24, 1999, I thought it would pass quickly. We were happy because this was some kind of liberation for us, but we were not happy there was war.
The next morning, the small village of Krushe, across the river from us, was burning. Later, I was looking through my binoculars and saw Serbian forces ordering a group of women and children down the main road to the river.
The river was not as it is today—the water was very big and dangerous. At that moment, I decided to go and get them. My little brother said he would come with me. When we got to the other side of the river…children were crying and they were grabbing onto the tractor and screaming “Help us!” I was not afraid because when you know that you are going to help somebody, I think you don’t feel fear, or you don’t have time to feel it. We put 30 to 40 people into the tractor at once. My brother took them across the river and I stayed with the others to calm them.
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