Tales of Terror and Loss: Will the Serbs be Brought to Justice?

By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren, during visits to the refugee camps in Macedonia, spoke with several displaced Kosovars about their experiences of the past few weeks. Here are their stories:

ERANDA RUDARI, 28, obstetrics nurse ' Where will I have my baby?'

BRAZDA, Macedonia--For a week, Eranda Rudari had been hearing that Serbian forces were running people out of their homes in Kosovo. But she kept telling herself that they would not get to her apartment building in Pristina, the capital. And, if they did, they would not evict a woman who was 9 months pregnant, she figured. But then, a week ago, Serbian troops wearing masks forced their way into her apartment and ordered her and her family to leave or be killed. She told them she was about to have a baby. They didn't care. None of her Serbian neighbors came to their assistance. "I had a lot of Serb friends, but now I am very angry with them because no one came to help me," Rudari said, gesturing excitedly and rising to her knees to display her outrage. She and her family drove to the Yugoslav border with Macedonia, where they were stuck for a week in the mass of humanity held up there by Yugoslav and Macedonian authorities. Rudari, her husband and two children--ages 4 and 6--stayed in their car for four nights and then abandoned it and waded into the muddy, reeking field on the Macedonian side. 

She slept under a sheet of plastic one night and then in a makeshift tent of the same material donated by international relief agencies. Nonetheless, she was muddy, wet and cold, and she frantically worried about the health of her two young children and her unborn baby. Tuesday afternoon, they boarded a bus and rode about 10 minutes to a camp with thousands of tents. An hour and a half later, her family was still waiting for a tent. She was feeling pains in her belly, but was afraid to go to the medical tent for fear she would be separated from her family. "I hope no woman in my condition will ever experience what I'm experiencing," said Rudari, as she knelt on a woolen blanket on the ground, holding her swollen belly. Her most immediate worry was that, a week before she left, she had an ultrasound test and was told the baby was in the breech position and that she would have to have a caesarean section. "Where will I have my baby?" she asked. The thought of having an operation in a medical tent made her shiver. Unlike most other refugees from Kosovo--a southern province of Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia--Rudari said she was eager to go abroad and never come back, even though she had never left Yugoslavia before. "I don't want to go back to Pristina. There are so many bad memories," she said. "I had a dream once of going abroad, but I did not want to leave my parents behind. Now I won't think twice."

HAJRIZ RAIFI, 78, retired night watchman 'I'm very angry. I've been humiliated.'

TETOVO, Macedonia--Hajriz Raifi sat on a folding stool outside the military tent where he had been brought the night before. He stared into the distance, trying to make sense of what had happened to him over the last several days. A shriveled old man in poor health who has a hard time walking, Raifi was evicted from his home by masked forces who taunted and ridiculed him. He was forced onto a bus that dumped him at the border with Macedonia. There he spent two nights in the mud and rain, feeling his fragile body get sicker and weaker. Then, he was loaded onto a truck and taken to a camp built by the German military. The white stones of the camp reflected morning warmth, but Raifi still wore several woolen layers of clothing on his body and a scarf around his head. "I'm very angry. I've been humiliated. It's so stupid that I was forced to leave my house in my homeland to come here and live in a camp," said Raifi, 78, as he sat outside a tent in the German-run camp near Tetovo. He lived with his son's family in Pristina, and they had two cars and a truck and everything they needed. "I don't want to stay here. I would leave tomorrow for Kosovo if I could," he said.

HATIXNE IBRAHIMI, 43, laboratory technician 'I don't care about anything I left behind. I only care about my kids.' SKOPJE, Macedonia--Hatixne Ibrahimi was at work in her laboratory in the village of Ferizaj on March 27 when Serbian forces told her she had to leave immediately or be killed. They did not even let her go to find her five children. She waited two days in line at the border with Macedonia, then crossed, not knowing what had happened to them. "I didn't believe I would find them alive because they were separated from me," she said, her eyes filling with tears at the memory. "All I did was cry all the time. I couldn't even eat." The children had come separately with their father in a jeep over the mountains. The family was reunited by El Hilal, a local charity run by Albanian Macedonians. The family arrived in Macedonia before the country decided not to accept any more refugees, so, instead of languishing in the mud and eventually going to a tent city, they were welcomed into the home of a stranger, who like many other Albanian Macedonians was ready to give them a roof over their heads for as long as they needed it. The seven of them sleep in one room, but they are grateful for what they have. Nonetheless, the hassles, frustrations and agonies of being a refugee are great. 

Ibrahimi and her family worry about the fates of other close relatives. The children, who range in age from 4 to 17, are extremely rattled by all they've been through. "They are very scared, they don't sleep at night, and they cry all the time," Ibrahimi said. She worries that she and her family will not be able to support themselves in Macedonia. "I have worked 22 years analyzing blood, but no one will hire me here because I have no documents, no proof that I'm a professional," she said. The Macedonian government, concerned about its own unemployment problem, does not permit refugees to work. Ibrahimi said she does not give a thought to the possessions she left behind. "I don't care about anything I left behind. I only care about my kids--and they are with me," said Ibrahimi, who stood outside a photo store where the whole clan was getting pictures taken for identification cards for the Macedonian authorities. 

Ibrahimi wants desperately to return to Kosovo, but not the same Kosovo she left behind. Like many other refugees, she has had enough of sharing Kosovo with the Serbs and wants the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to make sure all Serbs are flushed out. The Serbs made up less than 10% of the province's population before the forced exodus of recent weeks. One Serb in Ibrahimi's laboratory killed an Albanian colleague, even though the two had worked together for 20 years, she said. "I want to go back to Kosovo as soon as possible, but I want the Serbs out," she said, her eyes squinting in anger.

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