Stunned Survivors Recall Killings, Terror

The mosque is destroyed, the bazaar is gutted, whole neighborhoods are razed, and the cemetery has at least 150 fresh graves with crude wooden markers.

“Unidentified. On the bridge,” one stake says in rough handwriting.

“Unidentified. Qemajc Bakija Street,” says another.

“Vejsa Family,” says a third on a grave that reportedly contains the burned remains of as many as 20 victims, almost all of them women and children.

The residents of Djakovica emerged from hiding this week to take stock of one of the hardest-hit towns of the war and tell their tales of terror suffered under Yugoslav army, police and paramilitary forces, which pulled out Monday.

Unlike other Kosovo towns that have wildly celebrated their freedom with the arrival of NATO troops, Djakovica seemed shellshocked and numb. Some residents salvaged what few belongings they could from the rubble of burned-out buildings, while others pleaded with Kosovo Liberation Army rebels based in the cultural center to help them find their missing sons and husbands.

The survivors’ stories were at times sketchy--often based on what could be heard while crouching on the ground in fear or observed through a hole in a wooden door. But they painted a consistent, almost routine picture of terror against ethnic Albanian civilians in a town that Yugoslav forces believed was helping or hiding KLA rebels who have been seeking independence for Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s main republic, Serbia.

Every neighborhood here, possibly every street, had a crime to tell.

The burning of houses and killings began as soon as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization started bombing March 24, residents said. Intellectuals, businesspeople and the well-to-do were targeted by the Serbs. Urim Rexhas, a prominent lawyer who defended people accused of collaborating with the KLA, was among the first to be killed, residents said.

One of the worst incidents here was cited by an international tribunal that last month indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four lieutenants on war crimes charges.

On April 2, Yugoslav troops moved into the Qerim neighborhood. As often happened, most of the ethnic Albanian men--who risked being suspected of KLA ties--fled, while the women and children hid in basements and soldiers searched the houses.

In one home, the Yugoslav soldiers found as many as 20 ethnic Albanians, shot them to death and burned their bodies in a basement, according to residents.

“I counted 14 bodies, but it looked like there were others buried in the rubble,” said Ismet Haxhaivdija, whose daughter-in-law and three grandchildren were among the dead.

“The smallest was 1 1/2 years old. I knew the mother. My daughter-in-law had a 4-year-old,” he said as his wife wept. “My grandchildren were very nice children. We loved them very much.”

He said a graveyard worker told him that the bodies taken out of the basement were buried in a single grave marked “Vejsa Family.” A local human rights worker said he had the names of people who died in the basement, and a list was included in the indictment filed last month by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

The KLA fought the Yugoslav army in the hills around Djakovica in early May, and rebels apparently moved into parts of town. Yugoslav forces lashed back with an offensive beginning May 7 that drove residents into hiding. Dozens of civilians are believed to have been killed.

The Shabrati neighborhood was particularly hard hit, residents said. On Hasim Vorshi Street, three men were shot to death while hiding in the woods and were buried in backyard graves; four others were killed in the street on their way home from the market, falling by their bicycles and broken eggs.

“I told my husband to run and hide in the mountains, but I stayed in the house with my children because I feared the little one would cry and we would be caught,” said Bleta Domi, a 33-year-old doctor.

“They burned the house next door because they thought the KLA was there,” Domi said. “I don’t know how I am alive. I don’t know if my head is right.”

Many residents were rounded up and taken to the Zenel Luzha neighborhood, where Yugoslav forces separated the men and women. On May 8, Yugoslav police executed 14 of these men in front of Salami Grezda’s house, according to accounts by Grezda and his 16-year-old daughter, Blerta.

“We crouched down on the ground when we heard the shooting. The women started to cry, and we were afraid the police would get into the house. We were afraid to go out,” said Grezda, 60.

“The next day we looked out through holes in the front door,” Blerta added. “We saw the bodies full of bullet holes. . . . After two days, the police came with a tractor and took them away.”

Other, less dramatic stories were told on many blocks. Two dead here, three there. Neighbors pointed to a basement on Milos Giliq Street where they had extracted friends of 30 years for burial last Sunday; others opened Teki Deda’s house on Komuna Parisit Street to display the bloodied sofa and armchairs where they said Deda, his sister and brother were shot to death April 23.

Djakovica residents said they felt as if the Serbs had wanted to kill them all and their history too.

“It wasn’t only Djakovica that supported the KLA, everyone supported the KLA,” said Arsim Komoni, 40, as he packed sooty furniture onto a horse cart. “But here they wanted to clear out anything that was Albanian. They wanted to destroy our culture.”

Outside of the ruins of the 450-year-old central mosque, Esat Hana, 57, agreed.

“We had many occupiers in this town, but no one destroyed the mosque except for the barbarian Serbs,” Hana said. “For 80 days, we couldn’t come and pray. . . . When NATO [troops] came, we started the call to prayer again for the first time.”

If not fully at peace, Hana said he at least felt a sense of relief: “Last night was the first time I took my pants and socks off to sleep.”