© 1999 Global Beat Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.

The Knock on the Door: Letter from Pristina

 
By a correspondent in Pristina*
April 1, 1999
 
(EDITOR'S NOTE: After the NATO air strikes began last week and most Western journalists were expelled from Kosovo, this correspondent for the Balkan Crisis Report has filed regular dispatches on the situation in Pristina.)
 
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The Albanian districts of the city have been pretty much emptied of their residents by now. Almost every home has been broken into, not even looted but simply destroyed.
 
The streets are filled with the sound of heavy gunfire both day and night now. It's not fighting between armed combatants; just gunmen shooting in every direction. It's going on outside my home right now. Everyone seems to be shooting.
 
Only women dare to go out now; it's too dangerous for men. But the shops are all closed and there's nothing to buy anyway. We started using the food we'd set aside in reserve. We're providing refuge to four other families in our apartment so we now have 15 mouths to feed.
 
I just interviewed the doctors who saw they body of the slain human-rights lawyer Bayram Klimendi. They said they could not confirm how many times he'd been shot because his body showed "bad and deep signs of maltreatment" -- torture.
 
That's what frightens me. I am not afraid that someone will come and kill me, as long as it's a quick death.
 
My friends in the outside world call and tell me to leave. God, I do want to get out of here. I can't stand it anymore. But I won't leave without a rock-solid guarantee, a document, insuring that my family and I can get safely out of the city. A large convoy of refugees left for the Macedonian border Tuesday but we understand that they haven't been allowed out of Kosovo yet.
 
But now it seems we have no choice. The knock on the door we had long feared has finally come. My family and I have been ordered to leave.
 
There is no time to finish this report. We have to leave NOW. I don't know where. It seems I am about the join the ranks of the refugees I was writing about only a few days ago.
 
Pray for me. Goodbye.
 
(The correspondent and their family was later reported to be attempting to make arrangements to escape to Macedonia.)
 
* The name of this journalist, a correspondent for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting's Balkan Crisis Reports, is withheld to protect against reprisals.

 

Click here for more analyses of the Balkan Conflicts from the Global Beat

© 1999 Global Beat Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, provides editors with commentary and perspective articles on critical global issues from contributors around the world. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/.

Home | About | Archives | Advisors | Staff