TWO WOMEN REMEMBER LOVED ONES LOST IN MARCH 1999 IN KRUSHA E MADHE AND KRUSHA E VOGËL.
There are two houses in Ajshe Shehu’s compound in Krusha e Vogël. She lives in one of them along with her family; the government started building the other, but it has been left unfinished and is uninhabitable. It is an example of the negligence of Kosovo’s institutions in addressing the issue of people who are missing following the 1999 war.
Ajshe, 71, generously accepted me into her house, but when I asked to talk about her missing husband and sons and the 21-year-long effort to find their bodies, she said a firm “No!” adding “I’m tired.” However, in the end she chose to speak.
Ajshe and I went to Krusha e Madhe to have coffee with 64-year-old Ferdije Hoti, who was waiting for us in her small yard, which she had tidied up with care. The pain was hidden in her eyes; as she slowly adjusted her headscarf, she said to me, “There is no point to our lives! All that’s left of us is the outward form.”
These women’s gardens were once full of children, games and joy but the women now look worn, more because of their suffering than because of their years — and they share the unbearable fate of silence, emptiness and the absence of their loved ones since March 1999.
On March 25, one day after the NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia started in Kosovo, the villages of Krusha e Madhe and Krusha e Vogël were surrounded by Serbian special police forces. The next day, over 300 people from both villages, mostly men and older boys, were rounded up and killed. With some of the remains of the victims dumped in the Drin River, the search for them became a nightmare for the family members who survived.
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