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"KFOR drove us out of Kosmet"

Kragujevac, 10th August (Mininf) - The scene already seen in Serbia. Village school in Male Pcelice, near Kragujevac, about 150 kilometers far from Belgrade - sultriness, bear-foot children plays in the yard. In classrooms - rooms!? Elderly people with sullen gaze. They hang their heads during introducing and proudly pronounce their family name. They do not like to say their names. They are ashamed. They are refugees, some of them already for the third time in the past five years.





They 150 are housed in four classrooms. Among them there are refugees from Bosnia and Croatia. They went to Kosovo hoping to begin the new life. They are driven out again. By whom? World powerful persons. In the refugee camp Serbs, Gypsies, Egyptians… live together. They live in accord as before the war. They speak with droop face. Each refugee's story is the same: " There we had…" However, these refugees are embittered. " KFOR drove us out" - they say. As we could not believe, they only point to loaded tractors covered with tarpaulin having the UNHCR inscription. "They even gave us fuel for tractors. There were 40 persons in each trailer". From surrounding of Pec to Kragujevac they traveled for five days.



" The war was horrible and after the end of the war, KFOR arrived. Our army withdrew. Some Italian and German soldiers told us to flee immediately since they are not able to defend us. We packed in several hours and left Kosovo. Our youngsters were in the field. We had no time to inform them. Later on we heard that they had been slaughtered by ethnic-Albanians. "KLA". They killed two sons and husband of mine" - says an elderly woman with eyes full of tears, in mourning cloths. She says that foreign journalists who visited them in camps thought that black cloths is a national costume?! Everybody is in black.



With incredulity about the story of KFOR assistance in driving out these people, we go to the nearby school, where also are refugees from Kosovo and Metohija - they 160. Sports hall and mats on the floor. Here they sleep, cook, eat - live. It is stuffy and various smells mix. There are sick persons, but nobody is hungry.

" They housed us here. It is nor luxurious, but we have the roof above our heads" - says a boy of about twelve years. He was an excellent pupil in Kosovska Mitrovica. Very soon, on 1st September, the school year starts and he knows that then they will have to move out of that school. Which school he will go, he does not know.



His mother is in mourning cloths. We do not ask for the boy's father, it is too painful. He tells us the same story as people from Pec: " We wanted to stay. There are many Serbs in Mitrovica, but they really frightened us and sent us to be refugees. It is true, KFOR gave 50 liters of fuel to my father and secured us for about twenty kilometers. They turned back and around the curve terrorists started firing at us. We did not have arms - KFOR took them from us. My father was wounded into his arm but he continued driving tractor for another 50 kilometers - to Leposavic. He stayed there in some hospital."



The third refugee camp is located in the far worst conditions. Sheet-metal hall in Bresnica that used to be a green market is turned into a dormitory for 200 Serbs, Gypsies, Egyptians and Muslims from Kosovo and Metohija. The majority is from Djakovica, Prizren and Pec. They sleep in beds on two layers. On the third floor are males, while mothers with children, more than 80, are on lower ones.



Nebojsa Knezevic, the director says: "They eat only cans for two moths already. But, as you know, children need milk, biscuits, fruits. They do not need canned food full of nitrates". While he was talking some young boys came to inform him that the cooked food has arrived from the Orthodox church. The dam hall became vivid. Hamburgers, soup, fried potato came. The face of the man we are talking to lit up - he managed to provide them with better food, even for a short time. He is not sure what is going to be tomorrow. " The state is devastated by the war. The town and the state do their best to provide us with the best, but you see as it is" - he points to the crowd gathered around the "caldron".



Males who are not engaged in food distribution sit around us and speak hardly: "Recently a journalist from the "Die Deutsche Zeitung". We told him that KFOR drove us out, gave us fuel and deprived us of the protection. He was surprised. He said that he believed us and would publish that story at the price of his personal security. The German said that they do not even have the slightest idea about what was going on in Kosovo. As soon as someone attempts to say the truth, the state censors him. Some of them are even threatened. That is probably that democracy of theirs because of which we are dying. We shall see what he is going to write" - says young Gypsy from Djakovica surrounding loudly gesticulating. He unites the story of the majority of refugees we talked to - " If KFOR says that it guarantees us the security, we shall go back. Otherwise we have no where to go. I know that our houses are fired and destroyed. You know, it happened while KFOR secured Kosovo. Who let ethnic Albanians to put our houses into fire?"



That there is hope for mutual life we become convinced getting to know a young Gypsy couple. They got married just in the green market hall turned into the refugee camp. The spouse is pregnant. Here is also Milos Popovic, a small boy from Belo Polje near Pec - a war child. He is only five moths old and already is a refugee. We hope that his future will be better than the present black time.



One of the stories also supports their fable hopes. Namely, Montenegrin from Pec, who escaped into Rozaje, Montenegro, after the KFOR arrival had a telephone call from his ethnic Albanian neighbor who knows how managed to find his new telephone number. He strictly told him: " My neighbor, I am in your house. We have lived together for so many years and I do not like to spoil our relations. I moved into your house in order to keep it from burning by wild people from Albania. We ethnic Albanians from Pec are not safe due to them. If you wish I shall send you the rent for the period I am in it, practically until you come back. When you come, your house will wait for you. The same as you left it."



"And, he will come", say his relatives, " if Clinton, Blair and others let us go back".


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