Mitrovica

Today I went to the city of Mitrovica in the north of Kosova. Mitrovica is an ethnically divided city, it wasn’t before the war but now Albanian people live on the south side of the river and Serbian on the north. I met a new colleague there today and we got talking. This is the story she told, which is a typical Mitrovica story.

Her house is in the north of the city, she is Albanian and had managed to live there with her family in the now almost entirely Serbian area for five years after the war. Eventually in March 2004 after some persistent violence, including grenade attacks, she told her father, who had built the family home and did not want to leave, that the home and its belongings could be replaced but not the lives of her two young children. They left everything behind and went to the south.

Since then she has returned to see the family home, accompanied by two police officers. She found it occupied by three Serbian families. They told her…“do not bother us, do not come here”, but “this is my home” she told them….“this is Serbia now and you cannot live here, forget this place” they ordered. The police do nothing for fear of ethnic violence. She has not been back and now lives in a rented house on the south side.

In connection with this she went on to tell me that recently her ex-husband has been putting pressure on her and the children to return to him (they are divorced). Recently she heard her thirteen year-old son, who it seems is tough for his years, tell his father…“father why are you bothering us, to us you are like Serbia is to Kosova, you had us once and lost us, now leave us to live in peace”. The possibility of independence for Kosova is on every ones mind these days, sometimes too much it would seem.