Continued attacks against Roma in Kosovo
03 October 2000
Attacks against Roma in Kosovo continue. Several explosions in July and August took the lives of three Roma, caused the destruction of Romani houses and injuries to several individuals. On August 7, 2000, two houses belonging to Roma from the village of Gorna Brnjica, in the Gniljane region, were reportedly set on fire by Albanians from the same village. According to Agency Serbia Info, the fire spread to the neighbouring forest and destroyed about six hectares of it.
On August 2, 2000, at around 9:30 PM, three Roma were killed and one injured by an explosion outside their home in the village of Mali Alas, fifteen kilometres south of Priština. Mali Alas is an ethnically mixed village where currently 450 Albanians and 250 Roma live. Reports conflict as to details, but according to Yugoslav daily Blic, two Finnish peacekeepers found the unexploded mortar bomb tied to a fence, while they were extinguishing a fire on the house of the Romani Salihu family. The patrol cleared people out of the area, but three members of the Salihu family - a father, son and nephew - who went to help put out the fire, were walking in the direction of the patrol when the improvised device exploded. Two of the victims died instantly, and the third died soon after despite being attended to by a KFOR doctor. A second son was slightly injured by the blast. Relatives of the victims reportedly blamed local Albanians, stating that it was not the first time their family had been targeted.
On July 8, a Romani man from Stimlje, in the Priština region, reported to the KFOR that a hand grenade had been thrown at his house. According to the KFOR patrol which was sent to investigate, shrapnel holes were discovered in the walls of his house.
In the early hours of July 8, 2000, according to Reuters news agency, four grenades were fired in the direction of a Romani village of approximately 150 people in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. The grenades fell through the roof of a house. The explosion seriously injured an eight-year-old Romani boy in the abdomen and back; he required surgery. Two other persons, a ten-year old boy and a twenty-year old man, suffered minor injuries.
On July 3, 2000, according to the Priština-based non-governmental organisation Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms a powerful explosion totally destroyed an unoccupied house owned by a Romani man in the village of Kabash, in the Gnjilane region.
On August 22, 2000, Belgrade media sources reported the discovery of a mass grave containing 160 bodies, including those of missing Serbs and Roma, in the Dragodan district of Priština. Family members of missing Serbs and Roma say they were asked by UNMIK to identify bodies. Blic referred to a Romani woman, Ms Vesna Mulici, who identified the body of her husband. Blic also reported that the bodies were presumed to be those of victims of attacks by ethnic Albanians over the past year. On the subject of the Dragodan mass grave, the Humanitarian Law Center, a Belgrade-based non-governmental organisation, was informed by the OSCE Coordinator for Missing Persons that the remains of 176 bodies were exhumed by a British team of forensic experts and UNMIK police collecting evidence of war crimes, and that the exhumations were completed in late July 2000. The majority of the bodies were buried in individual graves before and during the war by the Priština city mortuary company attached to the Priština hospital. A few bodies had been buried after June 1999. According to the OSCE, the bodies were places in unmarked graves either because they lacked identification, or because families were unable to collect them. So far 44 bodies have been identified as those of Kosovar Albanians, and there are indications that five bodies may be the remains of Serbs. In an effort to assist families with the identification of the remains, the OSCE held an exhibit of clothing and other artefacts recovered from the graves. In addition, they are preparing a catalogue of photographs of the clothing and artefacts in order to make the information available to families of missing Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, particularly those displaced in Serbia and Montenegro. Roma in Kosovo have fallen victim to a massive wave of violence at the hands of ethnic Albanians after the end of the NATO bombing in June 1999, but also suffered human rights abuses in the province committed by Albanians and Serbs throughout the 1990s. On abuses of Roma in Kosovo, see also "Field report" in this issue of Roma Rights. Past ERRC publications on Kosovo are available on the ERRC website at: www.errc.org.
(Agency Serbia Info, Blic, Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms, Humanitarian Law Center, Reuters)
