Christian Jennings reports from Sverke, in Kosovo, on the animosity between Albanians and the Egyptian Muslim minority.Murders in Kosovo help to fuel a family's blood feud
Monday, April 17, 2000
KOSOVO - You can tell what kind of ammunition was used to execute Xhafer Brahimi's mother, son and nephew because the stray bullets from the burst of gunfire that killed them lodged in the frozen chicken legs they were bringing home from market."I saw their horse and cart going down the track in front of our house," says Brahimi, a 37-yearold Kosovan man from the province's beleaguered Egyptian Muslim community, an Albanian-speaking ethnic minority.
"As soon as I heard automatic gunfire, I looked down through binoculars. When I saw the horse stop I knew they were dead," he sobs, wiping his eyes as he looks at their three coffins laid out on the new spring grass inside his farm compound in the western Kosovan village of Sverke.
The Brahimi killings were just three out of an estimated 12 murders of ethnic minorities to have taken place in Kosovo in the last 10 days, says NATO.
Murders of Serbs, Roma Gypsies and Egyptians have more than trebled since the beginning of April.
Who fired 10 Kalashnikov bullets into the sternum of Xhafer Brahimi's 78-year-old mother? Who executed his 17-year-old son, Fidan? Whose hunting rifle was fired pointblank into his 18year-old nephew, Muharem, as he sat on the horse-drawn cart?
The answer depends on whom you talk to. The 150 mourners who have gathered around the three newly dug graves under the oak trees at the bottom of the farm will give you different answers.
"In August last year 10 Albanian men came to the gates of the compound at night," says Xhafer. "They had guns. They tried to break down the doors. They were asking for grapes."
For grapes read the Brahimi family vineyard. For the vineyard read land. For land read money. Throw in Kosovo, and it all ends up as a revenge blood feud.
"It's all about this damn land," says his aunt, shaking her head as she looks around at the gathered womenfolk of the family. Thirty-five of them, wearing traditional Muslim head-scarves, are weeping loudly over the three coffins draped in gaudily coloured fluffy blankets.
"When the men couldn't break down the gate," continues Xhafer, "they shot through it. I returned fire from the house and hit one man in the leg. He went down, and by mistake shot another, killing him."
In fine Albanian tradition, there began a family blood feud. Death avenged by death. The killing of women and children against the rules. Repeat till not a single man is left alive.
"The family hasn't really left the compound since the summer," says Xhafer's brother, offering around Coca-Cola and cigarettes as the women wail and the sun shines strongly. "When my aunt, son and nephew did, they were followed from here to market and back, and then killed."
Among the dandelions in a quiet corner of the farm, they've dumped the cart on which the three family members died. Most of the blood's been scrubbed off, but you can see the bullet-scarred wood, the rust-coloured stains.
From here you can almost understand what the feud is all about. This is God's country. Fertile fields, gently sloping ploughed furrows, plentiful space. All 60 acres of it. Through the sky above the valley clatters an Italian NATO helicopter.
"NATO troops will not come and protect us," says Xhafer Brahimi. "We've asked several times, we know the people that did this."
UN policemen based in the town of Peja, 15 km distant, did come to investigate the killings. No arrests have yet been made.
Fifty of the Brahimi clan live here on the edge of the ruined village of Sverke, a predominantly Serb community whose houses were totally destroyed by Albanians just after NATO entered Kosovo last June.
"The rest live in Germany, which is where we're going if these killings continue," says Xhafer. "The people that did this, before the war they used to co-operate with the Serbs. Now they're common criminals."
There's no doubt that ethnic animosity between Albanians and the Egyptian minority have worsened relations in the village, as have accusations of complicity and collaboration with Serb military units, whose programme of ethnic cleansing of the Kosovan Albanian population in spring 1999 reached its apogee in the Peja region.
The graves lie in a fenced-off area 20 metres by 20, and it's hard not to think that if you came back in a year's time, the feud would still be continuing and UN police would still not have got to the bottom of it.