Thursday, May 25, 2006

Some 36 wounded from a clash in Krusha e Vogel, a village of 800 near Prizren. Not everything is clear yet. Serb families, about 1/3 of the population, were trying to return to their homes in the village, while a group of Albanians, most of them children and women, threw stones. UNMIK Police intervened with brutality wounding 36 of the villagers.

Krusha e Vogel and Krusha e Madhe fed and took care of the wounded during the war although in the villages themselves there wasn't any resistance. In character and hard work people of the Krushas are the best one can find in Kosovo. For their support of KLA the village was punished with savage attacks, after which only 10 Albanian men who had escaped beforehand survived. Men and even boys were rounded up and placed in enclosed spaces where they were spayed with machine guns. The building was then burned and the remains taken away. Some of the "chosen" escaped to tell the story. The massacre is part of the testimony against Milosevic.

I know these people first hand because my father supplied the village doctor with medicine until about a month before the massacre. It was extremely risky to do so and drugs were only basic pain killers and some to stop bleeding and keep the wounds clean of infections. The bravery of the doctor and countless others in this village who awaited their fate while continuing to take care of others makes me feel very weak.

This article and this one from 2000 explain why it is so hard for people of Krusha e Vogel to forgive.

1 comment:

WARchild said...

Owen,

I haven't seen the documentary, but I'll look for it. Thanks!