"Gypsies" killed in Kosovo
05 December 2000
According to ERRC research and international media sources, the burnt body of Emrah Hasani, a 13-year-old Ashkali boy, was found on November 12, in the Ferizaj/Uroševac municipality of southern Kosovo. According to reports, the boy had gone missing on November 11, and UN police were provided with information on the whereabouts of his body the next day by unspecified sources. One report provided to the ERRC stated that the boy had gone to join the demonstrations held on November 11 to protest the continued imprisonment of Kosovar Albanians in Serbian jails, and that he had been taken from the demonstration. According to the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), evidence suggests that the boy was killed before his body was burned. Contradictory reports make it difficult to ascertain whether or not the police initially arrested a suspect. The ERRC has heard allegations that the Kosovo Police Service (local police trainees under the supervision of the UN Civilian Police) arrested an Albanian suspect in the presence of the victim's family, later released him, and then claimed that they had never arrested anyone. Ashkalija are widely perceived to be "Gypsies" and are targetted, with Roma, in ethnically motivated attacks.
In another incident, on November 8, 2000, four Ashkalija from Kosovo were killed while participating in a return project in Kosovo. According to ERRC research, information published by official UNMIK sources, and international media, the dead bodies of four male Ashkalija — Mr Istref Bajrami, Mr Isuf Ahmeti, Mr Hajzer Mehmeti and 16-year-old Agron Mehmeti — were found in the village of Doševac/Dashevc, near Priština, on November 9. The murders apparently took place sometime during the evening hours of November 8. Neighbors reported hearing four or five shots during the night. According to a UN spokesperson quoted by Reuters, three of the victims had bullet wounds in the forehead. The same UN spokesperson stated that the crime was likely ethnically motivated. According to UNMIK, the slain men - three heads of families and a 16-year-old boy - were the advance party of a group of Ashkali families planning to return to the village of Doševac/Dashevc from Kosovo Polje, where they had been living as displaced people for the past two years. On November 6, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had helped the men to return to their village of origin, where they slept in tents because their houses had been destroyed. They intended to begin rebuilding their homes with the help of UNHCR and the Scottish charity Kosovo Appeal. The bodies of the four victims were brought to a hospital for post mortem examinations.
A representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) told the ERRC on November 10 that the Ashkali community in Doševac/Dashevc had been forced out of the village in July 1999. Several families in Kosovo Polje had reportedly expressed interest in returning to Doševac/Dashevc, and the UNHCR had assisted them in making the move. Locals had reportedly been informed about the return and had been supportive.
On November 10, 2000, the ERRC sent a letter to Dr Bernard Kouchner, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), to express alarm at the killing. The letter stated that while the ERRC appreciated Dr Kouchner's swift condemnation of the crime and explicit recognition that it constituted an effort to destroy all progress made to date in Kosovo, numerous international observers had earlier commented on the alarming speed with which returns have begun, in the face of clear evidence that Kosovo remains unsafe for Roma and Ashkalija and indeed all persons regarded by ethnic Albanians as Gypsies as well as any persons who are not Albanians. The ERRC urged UNMIK to ensure that a thorough investigation is conducted and all persons responsible brought to justice. Additionally, the ERRC urged that all projects involving the assisted return of Roma, Ashkalija and other persons regarded as Gypsies by ethnic Albanians be thoroughly evaluated before any further returns were contemplated and that all persons returning to places from which they have fled or been expelled be provided with 24-hour personal protection. As of November 20, although UNMIK, UNHCR and OSCE had all issued press releases condemning the killings and demanding thorough investigations, no suspects had yet been arrested.
Roma, Ashkalija and other persons regarded as Gypsies fell victim to a massive wave of violence aimed at their expulsion from Kosovo following the end of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the return of ethnic Albanian refugees to the province in June 1999. During the course of the ethnic cleansing campaign, ethnic Albanians have killed Roma and Ashkalija, kidnapped them and subjected them to torture, raped Romani and Ashkalija women in the presence of family members, and burned entire settlements to the ground. Numerous persons remain missing and feared dead, over half of Kosovo's Roma and Ashkalija population today remains displaced outside of the borders of Kosovo, and many others are displaced within the borders of the province. For more information on Roma in the Kosovo crisis, see www.errc.org.
(Agence France-Press, ERRC, Reuters)
