Sunday February 27, 2000
She is a survivor, a teenage girl with an iron will and the family's great hope for a better future. With her parents and her two younger brothers, Rrezarta Rrukeci made it unscathed through Kosovo's vicious war. Despite the Nato bombardment and the expulsion of a million Albanians, the family never left home in the city of Mitrovica and were there to cheer the arrival of the international peacekeepers.
But this week Rrezarta, 17, who wants to be a lawyer, is preparing to travel to Slovenia. Perched up in bed, wearing pyjamas covered in teddy bears, she pulls back the duvet to reveal a bandaged stump and the zipper scar down her chest where the shrapnel hit.
'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' she says. 'My brother later died.'
On 4 February Rrezarta and her family, along with other relatives and neighbours, cowered in the apartment as the sounds of rampaging Serbs came closer. The front door was barricaded with a wardrobe. The voice of a neighbour among the crowd outside demanded that the family open up. 'Of course we disobeyed - we knew if we left they would kill us all. So they started shooting and then they threw the first grenade.'
The blast shattered windows, then a second explosion set the room on fire. 'Everything was in flames, and suddenly I saw holes appear in the glass and I realised a sniper was shooting from the building opposite. I went to the kitchen to get water for the fire.'
Then, a third explosion: 'I was on the floor and my leg was in my arms. It had been blown off and into my arms - that's why I lost a finger. I was trying to crawl to the next room. I opened the door to the dining area and everything had fallen to the floor. I saw my neighbour with her stomach spilling out and my brother, who was also hurt.
'I was praying to God, please take me, because the pain was...'
Her voice trails off.
Rrezarta and her family were victims of an orgy of violence that erupted in the divided city of Mitrovica on 4 February, the day after a rocket attack on a refugee bus killed two elderly Serbs. The multinational K-For troops and the undermanned UN international police tried to control the mobs but by the end of the night, eight Albanians were dead and at least three more would die of their injuries.
'This is what makes you feel so sad, and is so surprising,' says Rrezarta. 'We survived the war, and now...'
The seeds of the conflict were sown last summer when tens of thousands of Serbs fled Kosovo for fear of Albanian vengeance and French peacekeepers decided that maintaining calm in Mitrovica would best be achieved by discouraging Albanians from crossing the Ibar river to the northern half of the city where 20,000 Serbs were holed up.
Victorious Albanians wanted, understandably, to return to their homes in the north of the city - they were also fearful of partition, nervous that Serbs would create a de facto border at Mitrovica, thus keeping control of the Trepca mine. This ancient industrial complex is seen by many as Kosovo's potential economic salvation and is also of enormous symbolic importance to the Albanians, who are convinced Belgrade is scheming to split the province and take back the mine.
But now that most of the Serbs have long since fled, northern Mitrovica is the last viable enclave they hold - and the they are determined to stop their Albanian neighbours returning. 'It's better to keep that line [on the Ibar river],' says Oliver Ivanovic, a local Serb who has evolved into a smooth and media-friendly spokesman, despite Albanian allegations that he was involved in wartime atrocities.
He argues that because K-For was unable to prevent revenge attacks on Serbs elsewhere in Kosovo, there is no reason to think they will protect Serbs in Mitrovica - therefore, local Serbs must 'defend themselves'.
Such self-defence has this month forced the eviction of almost 700 Albanians and the hasty departure of another 1,500, who crossed the fortified western bridge and sought refuge in the Albanian half. K-For responded by flooding the city with troops and mounting Operation Ibar, a search for weapons which has led to a few arrests and some arms seizures.
But 2,000 of the 2,500 reinforcements have now been withdrawn after tensions calmed following a peaceful march from Pristina to Mitrovica last Monday. Although troops fired tear-gas to restrain some 200 trouble-makers who apparently wanted to cross the bridge to the Serb side, the demonstration was hailed by UN and Nato as a splendid and civilised effort to draw attention to Albanian desires to unify the city. Nato Secretary-General George Robertson yesterday insisted there were sufficient alliance troops in Kosovo to contain the crisis.
Around 4,300 soldiers are now patrolling Mitrovica, assisting 450 international police.'If you want to get to the heart of the matter, you have to look at it from the other person's point of view,' says Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Carter of the Royal Greenjackets, who was sent to Mitrovica to enforce Operation Ibar.
But that does not happen in Kosovo. And if Albanians and Serbs cannot live together, are not even willing to try, how are the UN and Nato to secure a stable, peaceful and multi-ethnic Kosovo?
One UN official in the city points out that it took years of patience to create even a semblance of normality in other Balkan cities split by ethnic wars. But as Carter says: 'This was something that has been festering here since the middle of June. The people here will only be patient for so long...'
