TUSTIN : Group Aids Refugees of Albania

Nick H. Christ still has vivid memories of the faces of despair he saw through the electrified barbed-wire fence that separates southern Epirus in Greece from northern Epirus in Albania.

“It was truly a pathetic sight,” said the 62-year-old Greek immigrant who lives in Tustin. “Seeing those people enslaved sent chills up my spine. Something has to be done to stop the human suffering that is happening there.”

Occupied by Albania, the last bastion of Stalinism in Eastern Europe, northern Epirus is experiencing mass political dissent, according to the U.S. State Department.

In the last few weeks, Western news agencies have reported huge protests against the hard-line Albanian government in at least three cities in northern Epirus. Albania, which is located between Greece and Yugoslavia, is closed to most foreigners.

Christ said he left southern Epirus in 1946 to move to the United States, but he remains in contact with relatives and friends there who keep him abreast of events in the region that is home to more than 400,000 people. He also visits his former homeland each year.

“Our people tell us that there is unrest in every city throughout the country (of Albania),” Christ said. “We heard that it is mostly students and that about 17 of them have been killed.”

Student-led protests earlier this month in the northern city of Shkoder, Albania’s second-largest city and a major industrial and transportation center, were reported to have been put down “immediately and violently,” according to the State Department.

In early 1988, in the face of rising resistance to the Albanian government, Christ and 30 other Californians of Greek descent formed a local chapter of the national organization NERRO (Committee for Aid to Greeks of Northern Epirus) to help aid refugees who cross the border to freedom. Sister groups have also been organized in New York, Detroit, Canada and Australia.

“We are concerned that these people’s plight is not focused on like the struggles of South Africa, Russia and South America,” Christ said. “Violation of human rights in any part of the world should not be tolerated.”

Since its inception, the Orange County chapter of NERRO has raised more than $7,000 to send to Greece. The funds are used to clothe, feed and temporarily house refugees from Albania. Christ said his organization has helped 177 people so far.

“After housing and food is secured for them, efforts are made to intergrate these people into society and to find them jobs so they can support themselves,” he said.

Estihia Missios, 56, remembers the night in 1944 when she and her family fled Albania at the beginning of the Communist rule.

“I was only 10 years old, but I remember my father crossed the border first before us because he feared he’d be killed,” said the Huntington Beach resident. “My mother and sister and I followed hours later in a car.”

Missios said she fears for the safety of her relatives still in Albania.

“I fear that because the information that comes from there is so censored,” she said, “we really won’t know what is or has happened. The situation could be much so much worse than what’s been told, for all we know. You can’t help but fear what you don’t know.”