Kosovan gypsy refugees stranded at Greek border Deutsche Presse

Kosovan gypsy refugees stranded at Greek border
Deutsche Presse-Agentur - June 16, 2003, Monday

Bitola, Macedonia - Despite the tropical heat, ramshackle huts and terrible living conditions for some 700 people including four new-born babies, Kosovo refugees seem determined at any cost not to return to their troubled home province.

The group of Kosovo gypsies, after four years spent in an improvised refugee camp just outside the Macedonian capital Skopje, dismantled their homes, packed their belongings and travelled towards the Greek border hoping to find shelter in European Union countries.

But their trip ended as they confronted border guards some 170 kilometres south of the capital, at a place called Metildzija - a border crossing between Macedonia and Greece.

Their future prospects do not seem too bright, as the Greek Foreign Ministry over the weekend stated that "there is no place for Kosovo gypsy refugees in Greece". "They will not be allowed on Greek soil," Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Panos Beglitis said, adding that authorities in Kosovo and Macedonia should cooperate so the refugees can return home.

But their homes are either destroyed or occupied by ethnic Albanians, who have accused the gypsy population in Kosovo of collaborating with Serbian troops.

"Like we had any choice. Armed men came to our place and forced us to dig trenches. They could not do it, because all Serbs and all Albanians were born to be members of special units. Gypsies were born to dig", said 40-year-old gypsy Muharem.

In improvised tents, erected in the middle of dried mud-holes, 700 refugees cope with high-temperatures, lack of food, water and medicines and no real effort to solve their problem.

"Some third of the refugees are in danger of getting seriously sick. We are trying to react with antibiotics, but the conditions are terrible. Four babies were born within the last ten days, and one was immediately transferred to hospital in serious condition," a local doctor said.

Over the weekend, refugees have received just bread and water. The problems facing them, malnutrition, a general lack of hygiene, tropical heat and mounting trash heaps, seem to have raised very few worries in Macedonia, and their formal homeland Serbia and Montenegro.

"Who cares for gypsies, anyway," said Muharem, who fled from central Kosovo in 1999, along with thousands of his compatriots fearing revenge attacks from local Albanians.

"Within a couple of days, Albanians burnt some 400 gypsy houses in Obilic, just 20 kilometres away from my place. It was a clear sign - leave or get killed. For us the choice was not hard," he said.

The United Nations administrator in Kosovo Michael Steiner recently urged refugees to return to Kosovo, but it was a request which the gypsies turned down without any qualms.

"You must be kidding. Go back where - to Lipljan to get killed or beaten. We would rather die here trying to enter some European Union country. It is our only chance of survival," said Muharem, a self- declared spokesman for the group.

The saga of their suffering reached its climax last month, as UNHCR decided to close their camp in the suburbs of Skopje, because the "maintenance of hygienic conditions was getting impossible".

Instead of housing, they were offered 40 dollars a month and some food supplies, which would, they said, just add more gypsies to the long list of people left homeless after a decade of bloody Balkan ethnic wars.

"We had just enough of promises. All we are asking is a fair chance to work in peace somewhere in western Europe," said one of the group, Osman.

"We have spent four years in a refugee camp. We are ready to stay here for four more, but we will not return to Kosovo, nor stay in Macedonia," he said.

But this is not likely to happen, as refugees have no passports or other valid travel documents.

Macedonian authorities recently offered to regulate the gypsies' stay in the country if they accepted the status of refugees, but representatives for the displaced gypsies turned down the offer and continued their protest near the Greek border.

The gypsies have also taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Salzburg, complaining that, according to the Geneva Convention, Skopje authorities "have no right to prevent refugees from crossing into Greece".