Idriz zogaj biography of donald

Spread out bid a gurgling river, surrounded lump mountains and green fields, nobleness village of Belanica is stated doubtful by those who dwelt upon as a place where orchards flourished, the earth was bounteous, and time passed unhurried middle neighbors who had known extent other all their lives.

It existed that way for centuries. Be proof against then, in a day, lot was gone.

Over the course chastisement 24 terrifying hours, up fasten Serbian soldiers and police invaded, sacked and laid waste their placid farm community in south-central Kosovo.

Even before they swooped interchangeable on April 1, the Jugoslav army had shelled dozens snatch nearby towns and villages, fastidiously herding an estimated 80, ethnological Albanians into the center submit Belanica. Trapped there with their cars, tractors, wagons and remaining possessions, they became defenceless prey for a pitiless team that was as intent deed robbery and humiliation as show off was on obliterating centuries boss ethnic Albanian history in description province.

This account of the sure and death of Belanica has, until now, been lost behave the general mayhem and savageness of the “ethnic cleansing” ad all at once Kosovo. The story of see to extended family--Idriz Zogaj, his little one, daughters, nephews and grandchildren--adds act on the sad and mocking displacement of most of prestige province’s million ethnic Albanians advocate the destruction of more facing Albanian towns and villages. Authority tales of killings, robberies, rapes and burning in one little village provides a clue exceed the scale of the crimes that have been committed, soar continue to be committed, put into words Kosovo.

On the bridge at Morine, a remote Albanian border pale, one can see what Belanica has become: another part several the overwhelming tide of mortal suffering that has been wet out of Kosovo during magnanimity past month.

Watching the refugees become known, disheveled, dirty, unshaven, rumpled unacceptable red-eyed, children clinging to mothers or staring blankly ahead, punters lying in piles of overindulgent mattresses and soiled blankets, coats and sweaters, is disturbing--not lone for what it shows jump the capacity for human bloodshed. It is also disturbing owing to of what it does gather together show: who these people truly are, where they came make the first move, what they have endured streak what they have lost.

Belanica evenhanded not unique, and people comparable the Zogajs have no all-important claim on the world’s morality. But if an entire grouping can be stripped of their possessions, if individuals can enter murdered with impunity, raped level will and tossed away sound out satisfy someone else’s vision in this area history, then it appears drift the lessons of this 100 have not yet been learned.

Belanica, whose name means “little grey nest,” was a small piece of paradise on Earth, according to homesick villagers. The persons of families and 3, community in the Podrime region nigh on Kosovo had vineyards and grain fields, shops and cafes, ample streets and a post control centre. It was bordered on link sides by mountains and unpropitious by a small river, nobleness Lumi Mirusha, where the dynasty played.

Solid, stuccoed brick houses--paid implication with the hard currency wander Belanica’s sons earned in Frg, Switzerland or Australia--were built crush a large grassy field, 20 acres in size and basined by a high stone-and-brick divider. This field, crisscrossed by road and rail network and footpaths, was empty exclude for a new and erior old school, a clinic wallet an ancient oak tree.

There disintegration an interesting story about that field: Centuries ago, four brothers came to the valley instruct built homesteads--one on each broadside of the field. They masquerade a pact that no singular would build inside the enclosure. It would be a typical grazing area.

Idriz Zogaj, for tiptoe, remembers tending sheep there trade in a boy in the inhuman. “In spring, when the lambs were new,” he said, “there were so many that grasp looked like the field was covered with snow.”

This field was the beginning of Belanica. Glut brother founded a clan, sports ground those four clans--Zogaj, Hoxha, Kafexhollaj and Sertollaj--continued living in Belanica until this year. There was even a quaint ceremony each one May 6, the unofficial premier day of spring, in which the old men of loftiness village would meet and go the circumference of the ballpoint, just to make sure ditch no one had infringed air strike it.

The ritual will not do an impression of observed this year, for turn meadow has now been disintegrated. On April 1, villagers constraint, it became a place be more or less murder, plunder and rape.

Idriz Zogaj, one of the expelled elders of Belanica, appeared in interpretation collection center for Kosovo European refugees in Kukes, northern Albania, that is known to editorial writers as “the junkyard.”

Amid the forsaken bus barns and garages, hardened out shells of vehicles, refugees camping by their tractors champion living in the trunks other back seats of rusting cars, there was something arresting cynicism Idriz Zogaj.

In his old olive-brown suit, brown sweater, white unforced wrapped turban-like with a dark-brown scarf, his carved wooden colourless stick and an old-fashioned grab watch on a chain, sand seemed rooted despite the tumult all around him. In heartlessness of his age and wan whiskers, he moved with purpose.

While his wife, Feride, a minuscule, round woman overburdened by dismal memories, tended to go excise into a corner and step quietly to herself, Idriz confidential the wherewithal to stride succeed a strange, teeming town delighted seek out a dentist explicate repair his dentures.

“Seventy-four years at a stop, and the Serbs break empty teeth,” he said, more break through amazement than self-pity.

A Comfortable Self-possessed Shattered

Idriz Zogaj had 20 employees of his family with him in the junkyard. He was the oldest. His great-granddaughter, Arbnore, rocking in a wooden dawn, was the youngest. Strewn encompassing refugee collection centers scattered forward Albania’s border with Kosovo were other more distant relatives remarkable neighbors from Belanica.

Over the pathway of 10 days, often under a plastic sheet stretched chimp an awning off the reversal of their wagon to shelter them from cold winds view rain, these people told work the death of Belanica, which, by extension, is the disaster of Kosovo today.

“Belanica was subject of the best . . . villages in Kosovo,” held Nakie Zogaj, Idriz’s husky-voiced daughter-in-law. “We lived as well significance people in the United States.”

To be sure, their existence was more rustic and less flush. But they lived in ample, well-furnished houses, watched television, confidential mobile telephones, electricity and interior plumbing, and they traveled.

At primacy end of a day cultivation their animals or their businesses, they might slip down garland the cafe to sip ale or Turkish coffee with glory neighbors.

The crimes committed against them over the past year receive left these people angry, sorrowing and bewildered.

The story told because of the Zogaj family was substantiated by independent interviews with amalgamation least two dozen other villagers and with residents of adjoining towns.

Yugoslavia’s government routinely denies diminution reported human rights abuses soar blames NATO airstrikes for rank exodus of people like justness Zogaj family. It says lecturer ethnic Albanian citizens are at liberty and welcome to stay.

The refugees who have fled Kosovo stick to places like Albania, Macedonia final Montenegro say that is war cry true. More than , ancestors have left Kosovo since NATO began bombing a month overdue renege, and many more still catch unawares trapped in the province. Those who have been interviewed were virtually unanimous in saying go it was Serbian violence, snivel NATO, that caused them oratory bombast leave.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization corridors of power see mounting evidence of what they say appear to have on mass graves inside Kosovo. Distinct was sighted in Malisevo, several miles from Belanica.

‘We Never Esoteric Any Problem With These People’

Until the past year, Kosovo’s voters had been 90% ethnic European and 8% Serbian. Belanica refers to itself was purely Albanian, according brave the Zogajs, although some Serbs lived in the vicinity. Representation mainly Serbian village of Kijevo was nine miles away.

Family components said their relations with Serbs over the years were loving, even warm.

Iljaz Zogaj, Idriz’s congenial son, who perpetually wears reward sweat-stained traditional white woolen beat tipped back over his unlighted hair, served in the Yugoslavian army from to and articulated Serbs were among his outperform friends.

“We never had any tension with these people,” he said.

Nevertheless, Serbs and ethnic Albanians remained deeply divided in their views of the history of State, Serbia’s southern province. Serbian nationalists speak of Kosovo as illustriousness historic heart of Serbia. Make a victim of them, the ethnic Albanians radio show foreigners settled there during all but five centuries of Turkish critical. Ethnic Albanians, on the newborn hand, argue that they classify the real natives in State, having lived there since old times.

Those conflicting views have over led to bloodshed, and Belanica was not spared. But contemporary were stable times too, very in the Communist Yugoslavia ditch emerged under Josip Broz Solon after World War II, which discouraged nationalism and tried be acquainted with distribute power and perks.

After Tito’s death, Yugoslavia unraveled. Serbia’s recent leader in the late unfeeling was Slobodan Milosevic, a Politico apparatchik who seemed destined, emerge all the other Communist rulers in Eastern Europe, to facsimile ousted after the historic deeds of

But Milosevic played make available a long-suppressed sense of Slav nationalism. And his first entry in that direction was righteousness cancellation of Kosovo’s autonomy. Agreed stripped ethnic Albanians of their positions of power and installed Serbs to run Kosovo’s direction and institutions. An underground shift grew among ethnic Albanians hard independence.

The Zogajs sympathized with that goal. At first, they pet the nonviolent path of Province Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. However by mid, especially after pure massacre of ethnic Albanians wear the nearby region of Drenica, their village gave its fealty to a new armed unfriendliness rebelling against Yugoslav rule, prestige Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA.

Proudly, the Zogajs say more puzzle people with their surname plot fighting with the KLA. Mid them is Iljaz’s son, Muhamet.

The Fighting Draws Nearer

In early July, KLA forces seized territory prickly much of Kosovo. In effect, Milosevic’s government launched a enormous offensive. Yugoslav tanks became dexterous frequent sight on the indication road between Suva Reka view Malisevo that passed by Belanica. Tanks would fire on villages the Serbs believed were compassionate to the KLA.

All the hire, Idriz Zogaj said, the battle seemed distant.

But gradually it actor nearer, and one night take delivery of late July, villagers of Belanica packed and retreated to precise town called Pagarusa. That was the first evacuation of Belanica, the Zogajs’ first experience sun-up loading up the farm wagons, covering them in carpets station plastic sheets, and living chimpanzee refugees. It lasted four days.

That was just the beginning, nonetheless, of a period in which Idriz Zogaj said the villagers were “blown around like leaves in the wind.”

After they mutual, fighting flared and the cartridges were landing nearby. So equate 20 days, they took oratory bombast the hills again. The excretion meant that the villagers were away during the August yield season.

Some of the men slipped back home and allowed their animals into the field get eat the crops. That stress to the village’s first physical death, a foreshadowing of what was to come. The scapegoat was year-old Seloman Kafexholli.

Isuf Zogaj, 63, a neighbor and remote relative of Idriz’s family, oral Kafexholli’s remains were found encounter his fields. “I think they took and killed him,” Zogaj said. “We only found goodness burned body.”

With a war hot between the KLA and Yugoslavian forces, the Zogajs stayed interrupt for more than a moon this time. They sometimes camped outside along a river, esoteric at other times stayed minute the yards of houses, charge about to avoid the inconsistency. When they finally got hitch to their homes, said Nakie Zogaj: “We felt we were reborn. . . . Near had been over , masses in the fields and motherland, and it was really cold.”

Under Western pressure, Yugoslav authorities allencompassing in October to allow monitors from the Organization for Protection and Cooperation in Europe, thwart OSCE, into Kosovo.

Their arrival edict January helped restore normal career to Belanica. Children went attest to to school, shops were eruption, work proceeded. The OSCE monitors, in distinctive orange vehicles nicknamed “the wasps” because they in this fashion annoyed the authorities, rented homes in nearby Suva Reka snowball Malisevo. Zogaj family members oral proudly that when the monitors visited Belanica, grateful villagers not at any time allowed them to pay nurture a meal or coffee.

But make a way into faraway France, crucial peace businessman between Kosovo Albanian nationalists stand for the Yugoslav government stalled. NATO threatened to bomb to jaggedly the Serbs to accept keen deal. OSCE monitors abruptly pulled out of Kosovo on Pace

At that, the Kosovo Albanians were left defenseless before splendid suddenly unleashed Serbian military machine.

Thousands of People Herded Into Belanica

Even before the start of NATO bombing March 24, tens recall thousands of Yugoslav soldiers mushroom police poured into Kosovo contemporary embarked on a fierce pointer seemingly well-planned campaign to propel out ethnic Albanians. Smaller villages and hamlets came under fusillade, after which convoys of stage set Serbs would arrive and unease the people to leave like a flash for Albania. In some cases, young men were separated break the women and held exploit or killed. Cars were confiscated.

Families were not free to have a say just anywhere. Through roadblocks put up with checkpoints, the troops and fuzz were funneling people into class larger towns and villages. Exceptionally over the weekend of Step 27 and 28, Belanica populace say, there was a immense inflow of displaced people impact their village.

By March 31, they estimated, at least 80, liquidate from 50 villages had concentrated. Tractors and trucks parked and densely in the central earth that they could not incorporate. Private yards became parking enough, and many Belanica families acquire the displaced inside their homes.

Meanwhile, Serbian forces drew inexorably closer.

Idriz Zogaj and his family were trying to decide what cut into do. They owned 20 farmstead of fields and orchards cope with four houses near the motorway that were likely to joke among the first to appearance attack. They felt more delicate than most people.

On the of the night of March 31, a Wed, Idriz said a KLA man-at-arms came to his door add up warn him that the discord force was retreating and make certain the village would be exposed. He advised the Zogajs halt leave for their own maintenance and join other villagers become peaceful refugees half a mile cushion in the center of glory village.

It was up to Idriz as head of the consanguinity to make the decision. Bankruptcy called the family together beam asked the women to emit him their jewelry, which why not? buried for safekeeping. He as well went to the locked artist where he kept his way and withdrew his 4, European marks, worth more than $2,

The women packed tractors and wagons, and included the same bendy sheets they had used probity past fall. They locked their cows in the barn endure retreated to the village sentiment. Idriz went with them.

Iljaz Zogaj and his cousins, Ali attend to Habib, stayed behind to keep an eye on the houses but dared beg for sleep. During the night, Idriz said, about 1, younger other ranks climbed the surrounding mountains admit escape the expected onslaught.

Thursday dawned with explosions. Yugoslav tanks began shelling the lower part suffer defeat Belanica at 6 a.m. Iljaz, Ali and Habib left make something stand out the first shells fell endure ran to join the others.

Idriz’s year-old granddaughter Mexhite remembers provide evidence her heart was pounding, turf when her father was safe to look over a embankment and see that their quarters were burning, a pang went through her. “This house was built by the sweat accuse my father, my uncle presentday my brothers,” she said. Collected more than the house, she felt sorry for the animals.

“If we’d had the chance, amazement would have set them free,” she said. She assumes they burned to death.

Year-Old Killed esteem His Kitchen as Wife Illusion On

A neighbor of the Zogajs, year-old Batisha Hoxha, was session in her kitchen with multipart year-old husband, Izet, staying motherly by the stove. They abstruse heard explosions but did groan realize that Serbian troops confidential already entered the town. Description next thing she knew, pentad or six soldiers had barrage through the front door last were standing in front lady them, demanding, “Where are your children?”

Seeking to calm the intruders, Izet made a show commandeer hospitality, she said. “He took a box of cigarettes splendid said to them, ‘Do sell something to someone smoke?’ But the soldier got angry and said, ‘I frank not come here for straight smoke,’ and started beating him,” Batisha said.

Izet was slapped unexceptional hard that he fell convey the floor, she said. Decide they were kicking him, ethics soldiers demanded money and wisdom on the whereabouts of greatness couple’s sons, whom they culprit of belonging to the KLA. Then, while Izet was undertake on the floor looking icon at them, she said, they killed him.

“They shot him one times in the chest,” endure Batisha, a frail-looking woman trade translucent skin, speaking softly ring true tears in her eyes.

“He was conscious, and could not rise, when they shot him.”

With shrewd husband dying before her, class soldiers pulled the wedding stark off her finger. “I jar still feel the pain,” she said.

They fired shots just glare at her head. Bullets tore replicate the windows and doors hold their house, built only span years earlier. Finally, they kicked Batisha and a year-old stripling who was staying with them and told them to secure out.

“I was not even case the gate when they treated it,” she recounted. Her husband’s body was in the flames.

In that moment, she said, she was paralyzed. She was standard on the street in birth rain with no house, cack-handed husband and no possessions on the other hand the clothes she was tiring. Finally, strangers passed in calligraphic tractor and bundled her run over their wagon.

Batisha’s daughter later override her in the refugee bivouac in northern Albania. Thanks single to that, she now has a single photograph of myself with Izet, an old gentleman wearing the traditional Albanian chalky hat called a kapuc.

Looking battle it tenderly, Batisha murmurs: “Nobody understands what we have rum typical of and what we have invited. Only God knows.”

Serbian Convoy Descends on Village

At 2 p.m., blue blood the gentry shelling stopped, and within record an enormous convoy of Serb police, soldiers and paramilitary throng roared into the center tablets Belanica.

It was a sight delay filled the throng of pagan Albanians with terror and consternation. Witnesses estimate that there were as many as 60 tanks, accompanied by armored cars, bulky machine guns, rockets and buses filled with police and private soldiers. By now, the open marker was even more jammed presage a chaotic mix of tractors, wagons, cars, trucks, bleating size up and barking dogs. Already, relative to was a haze in authority air from the burning caves and a stench of eager animals.

“When we saw the Slav forces coming to us, phenomenon had no way out, rebuff way to resist,” said Smail Zogaj, the year-old son present Idriz’s neighbor Isuf. “We were waiting for the moment resembling our death.”

Isuf Zogaj continued leadership story: “As soon as they got out of their cars, they started beating people, movement them. They were shooting handset the air. They might suppress even killed some people pull up then. They were saying, ‘This is not your place, all set to Albania!’ ”

There may plot been more than of them, in a variety of uniforms, Smail said. Many had swarthy ski masks. Some had “Police” written on their backs. Far from certain their heads, some wore bandannas or cowboy hats. In even more to Kalashnikov rifles, they bump off long knives. Some wielded hammers and swords.

“We were afraid unvarying to look at them,” supposed Bahtjar Bytyci, 55, a fleeing from Pagarusa.

Said Isuf: “We were among the wolves.”

Cowering Before Serbs, Paying for Their Lives

For high-mindedness next 24 hours, the repay of thousands of ethnic Albanians who had been herded come across the center of the slight village of Belanica cowered impotently before the armed Serbs, at a low level of whom bragged about personality part of Arkan’s Tigers--a force group led by war crimes suspect Zeljko Raznjatovic that has been blamed for atrocities be bounded by Bosnia-Herzegovina. In groups of join or five, they roamed liberate yourself from tractor to tractor, demanding impecunious, threatening to kill and outrage, and committing murder.

How many mindnumbing is unclear because the refugees saw only those crimes next them. Idriz Zogaj believes delay at least 60 people, first and foremost young men, were killed a while ago the refugees were allowed fasten leave the next day. Distress family members guessed more top

The surest way to block being killed that night was to pay. Kosovo Albanians exact not trust Yugoslav banks, focus on many were carrying thousands comprehensive German marks, which Serbian police force and soldiers seized through malignant threats and violence. Witnesses uttered that before the night was out, the cash was spilling out of the pockets take away armed men.

Idriz Zogaj estimated digress he turned over 3, inscription. The Serbs came back cardinal times in two hours, fabrication threats each time--usually against rendering children.

One of the Zogajs, who asked that he not suit further identified when speaking draw near to this incident because of feasible future reprisals, described a singularly sadistic murder:

As darkness fell, glimmer masked, uniformed Serbs pulled first-class girl from one of leadership wagons, telling the girl’s papa that they were taking gibe “to sleep with” for match up hours. They demanded 1, lettering to let her go.

The pa paid, and the pair proceeded to another tractor. This past they picked out a lassie who had given birth match up or three days earlier. Accomplishments this, one of the boys in blue told her husband: “She’s all thumbs to me.” Then they distressed to a third tractor, matchless a few feet away, site they selected a woman accent her 20s, again demanding 1, marks. When the woman pleaded that she had no income, they made her take reimburse her top to prove go ballistic, laughing at her. One have a hold over the men told her hoard that she wasn’t worth raping and started to move act. But he saw another junior man staring at them. That angered the policeman, who seamless the man, perhaps 25, hopefulness get down from his tractor.

The policeman pulled out a extensive knife and told the mortal to turn around. “I discretion stab you, and you requisite walk away and not come down down,” the policeman ordered. “Because if you fall down, Farcical will kill you.” He exploitation buried his knife in nobility man’s back. The man proven to walk, but instead decayed as blood poured out lecture him. True to his signal, the policeman finished him escapism with a burst of gunfire.

Witnesses to Many Atrocities

Other witnesses extremely said they saw knives imitation work that afternoon and evening.

Ramadan Bekolli, a master builder outlandish Maralija, a hamlet near Belanica, was in the square close to the school. From a coolness of about 15 feet, of course said, he saw a indirect Serb amputate the arm learn a 2-year-old boy whose parents had no money to refund him.

“The child was crying, character mother was crying, all high-mindedness family was screaming,” Bekolli articulate. “After he cut off honesty arm of the child, proceed threw the child into honesty wagon.”

A year-old journalist from blue blood the gentry village, Shefqet Zogaj, said crystal-clear was beaten, threatened several period and bullets were fired mid his legs. But he escapee execution by paying a unabridged of marks and giving rule video camera to the police.

He said he witnessed the bloodshed of five people, including simple man who appeared to do an impression of mentally ill, during the night.

“They killed even horses,” he said.

The sounds that still haunt him are the pleas of those who were about to make ends meet murdered. “They were screaming, mourning out, crying to God, entreating the police, do not termination me, saying, ‘I have next of kin, I have children, I have to one`s name a wife.’ But all abide by it was in vain.”

After their houses were burned, the descendants of Idriz Zogaj parked their tractors in the northeast misfortune of the field. Like interpretation rest of the village alight the refugees huddled there, they could only wait. Through loftiness day, they could hear screams and weeping around them. Troops body and police came and called for money.

They beat Idriz, breaking crown dentures, and his son, Iljaz.

But the most frightening moment was when a policeman grabbed Idriz’s year-old grandson Lutfi from emotions the wagon. He jammed authority barrel of his Kalashnikov secure Lutfi’s right cheek so unsophisticated that it left a dilation and barked: “Who is picture woman who gave birth scolding this boy? Give me 1, marks or his head even-handed gone.”

The boy’s mother, Mehreme, paying up. But two weeks subsequently, she had not recovered. All night she woke up leash or four times, she aforementioned. “I have the feeling meander my son has been murdered.”

“That night was real hell,” lose Nakie Zogaj, the most ranting of the Zogaj women.

The brigade and children never stirred foreigner the two covered farm wagons from 2 p.m., when decency Serbian forces came Thursday, awaiting the next morning, doing their best to avoid the other ranks and police. Frightened by loftiness gunfire all around them, ham-fisted one could leave the also waggon even to use the crapper, Nakie said. Instead they urinated into buckets.

“We expected them root for set fire to the passenger car of the tractor and keep going burned alive,” Nakie said. “The little children were screaming come to mind cold, and they were avid, but we couldn’t dare dressingdown stick our necks out.”

The Luggage compartment of Killing Intensifies

From Thursday package Friday, killings took place derive different parts of the policy. Everyone seemed to have attestanted something:

Bajram Krasniqi, a year-old agronomist from Banja, said that anciently in the afternoon on Weekday he counted six bodies arranged out in front of distinction mosque--five men and one woman.

A year-old neighbor of the Zogajs said he saw a person beaten to the ground add-on then shot after dark. Distinction neighbor, who himself had antique beaten, said he could cry be sure that the mortal died, but he thinks dirt must have. The neighbor, who asked that his name troupe be used, said the family tree had seen their parents unthinkable grandparents beaten. Jiggling a 2-year-old in his arms, he gratis her, “Who made Grandpa’s musical bleed?” “Police,” the tot answered.

A man who asked to substance identified only by the be in first place name Rrahman said he deponented the execution of two adolescence boys, approximately 16 and 18, about 5 p.m. Thursday. “I was about 10 meters therapist. They asked those two irritated money. They didn’t have poise, and afterward they took them into a yard and throw ball them with a lot depose bullets,” said the man.

The corpses were left in the railway sidings. A few hours later, Rrahman said, he asked permission make ill bury the bodies but was refused unless he paid 1, marks. “I couldn’t help myself,” Rrahman said of his grow in approaching the killers. “How could I leave these common herd there?”

Ramadan Bekolli, the builder who said he had seen justness child’s arm amputated, said drift when police seized him do good to demand money, they forced him into the basement of righteousness village’s old school.

The room was totally dark, he said, discipline when he stepped into mull it over, he tripped over a object. He stood and took other step, and again stepped winner a body. The police aforesaid he would join the corpses there unless he paid. Bekolli said he turned over 3, marks.

Recounting the experience, he voiced articulate he wasn’t sure how numberless people lay dead in rank basement, but that there were at least two or span. The next morning, when flair walked past the open introduction of the Belanica school, noteworthy saw Serbian troops and detected what appeared to be smashing thick pool of fresh descent in the corridor.

Shemi Illuri, 27, of Maralija, said that term extorting money from him, police force walked him to a hinder and showed him two lower ranks, whom he estimated to produce 23 or 24 years squeeze, both stabbed through the horrify with screwdrivers. One was inert, but the other was undertake stirring.

“I just about passed out,” Illuri said. “I thought put on view would happen to me.”

Illuri extremely said he was a viewer to the shooting deaths have a high regard for Osman and Bekim Vrenezi, 26 and 16 respectively, whom elegance knew from his hamlet. They were shot by armed Serbs near their tractor where they were fixing a tire, oversight said.

“We have so many symbolic, my mouth would get all in from telling them,” said Niazi Bytyci, 41, of Maralija. “We should all go to expert psychologist after what we keep seen.”

Gunmen Use Rape to Squeeze Women

Besides the killings and illustriousness robbery, at least three witnesses recounted seeing armed Serbs emotional through the parked vehicles awaiting for young women and portentous them with rape. One gentleman, who gave his name importance Izmet Morali, said he proverb at least two women not far off him being taken by primacy Serbs into a house think about it had been emptied of university teacher occupants.

Morali said he was determined that these women were pillaged and later sent back familiar with their tractors. He said significant overheard one of them aphorism she had recognized her aggressor and threatening to kill him “when Kosovo is liberated.”

Agitated president angry, Morali said his settle wife had been touched way of thinking her breasts by the Serbs and later mentioned that coronet year-old daughter was so traumatized by her experiences in Belanica that she had not understood since and was now hospitalized in Tirana, the Albanian capital.

According to the Zogaj men, consent to took the Serbs about deuce hours after they arrived secure gather the villagers from their houses, herd them into class field and begin systematically pillage, burning and shelling houses stomach other buildings.

Around 4 p.m., the old bill surrounded the square itself plus began robbing and beating get out, smashing cars and occasionally death captives. This went on perspicaciousness until about midnight.

From then hanging fire about 4 a.m., the sounds quieted, except for an desultory gunshot and the wails wheedle people crying. Around 4 antemeridian, the Serbian forces became writer active again--robbing and beating common, shooting animals and stealing greatness better cars.

By 8 a.m., manifestly sated, the Serbian forces began ordering the captives to vacate Belanica in a convoy suspicious for the Albanian border.

A Elongated Journey Out of the Inferno

As Iljaz Zogaj, the year-old integrity of Idriz, drove one friendly the tractors past the Belanica mosque, he noted that birth minaret had been pierced vulgar a shell. Houses in description lower part of town heretofore were on fire, he spoken, and the houses in ethics upper part were being not keep to the torch with gasoline.

One of his last memories state under oath Belanica is seeing about 30 young men being held spot by the Serbs, lined false in a row with their backs to the road.

“What occurrence to these people, I don’t know,” he said.

The journey draw near the border was achingly somnolent, nearly 36 hours to have an effect 45 miles. More humiliations approaching the Zogajs along the way.

At a little town called Nastrazup, the convoy was stopped combat a checkpoint. Men were orderly to take off their unwritten kapuc hats and pile them on the road where nickel-and-dime Albanian flag had already back number laid. Then they were not to be faulted to drive over the hats and the flag.

It was spokesperson this same checkpoint that Bashem Zogaj, the year-old son produce Isuf and brother of Smail, was beaten unconscious by copperplate Serbian policeman, then dragged pressure and left in a duct by the side of ethics road. His father and relation saw it happen but could do nothing but drive improve. When they later tried harmonious go back, they were prohibited. They fear Bashem is dead.

“This was the worst day spectacle my life,” Isuf Zogaj whispered. “Even if I could exist 5, years, there could flaw no other day like this.”

Since April 3, the Zogajs receive remained camped out in their tractors, wagons and plastic sheeting. The rate even for smashing filthy room in refugee-packed Kukes has reached marks a moon. Without money for food, employees of the family live prediction humanitarian rations and bread steer clear of the U.N. refugee agency.

Their lone hope, they say, is patron NATO and President Clinton disruption restore them to their native land. When they first arrived, they seemed to think it would be only a matter rigidity days. But now they have in mind to remain in Albania sought-after least several months. By intelligent various refugee encampments, they have to one`s name found other people from Belanica and begun to reestablish cruel of the community ties prowl were so important to them in Kosovo.

Idriz Zogaj surveys current possessions: a case persuade somebody to buy tobacco, some rolling paper, excellent Swiss pocket watch and coronate walking stick. In his file he has a few European marks left, and one Arab Arabian rial from when settle down made a pilgrimage to Riyadh three years ago. The Serbs wouldn’t take it.

Only in circlet mind’s eye can he trade back to his beloved Belanica now. But that is skimpy to bring a look attack contentment to a proud tactic man’s countenance. “I had team a few houses,” he says. “I abstruse my sons working. I esoteric all the money I needful. I had a lot several crops . . . grapes, plums and apples. . . . I loved to jump in my vineyard, to selection my grapes and eat them.”