The Albanians

Refugees were not our only focus. IRC also provided services to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) of Macedonia. They were primarily ethnic Albanians who had been forced to flee their own villages almost a year earlier when ethnic tensions erupted into civil war. We provided health and other services to IDPs in former government clinics throughout the country. We used the government facilities to house our clinics so that we could avoid creating a parallel system, a system that might be perceived as favoring of the Albanians by the Macedonian majority and thus create further tension. In all of our clinics, for both refugees and IDPs, IRC staff included an Albanian and a Macedonian. This helped foster better understanding and allowed the community to see that they could all work together, at first in clinics and later, we hoped, to rebuild their nation. The clinics for IDPs were always busy, and though housed in better quarters, they, too, saw many patients with a variety of ailments.

The roads leading to the Albanian villages were stark reminders of the recent war. Homes, cars, anything that hadn’t been destroyed by bombs were riddled with bullet holes. Although the gentle blanket of snow mitigated the scenery somewhat, the damage was still visible. The Albanians’ villages and homes had been destroyed and bombed by the Macedonian majority. Just as with the Kosovan refugees, there was still a fear that to go home would somehow spark further tensions and more fighting.

It wasn’t long before the roads cleared enough to allow us to move farther from the cities to get some rural assessments completed. The remote village roads, many built into mountainsides, were treacherous. Some ran almost straight up, but our driver somehow managed to coax the car up a snowy, ice-covered road in a distant town. The villagers stopped to watch as we maneuvered along the roads. They traveled in winter on horses and skis.

Our first stop was an authentic old-fashioned European village, untouched by time, still peaceful and quaint. No noise of cars (aside from ours) or radios here, just the hum of everyday conversation, the whinny of horses, the barking of a dog, the shrieks of children at play. Unfortunately, the picturesque surroundings meant poor access to medical care. There was only one doctor for several surrounding villages and he traveled by horseback. Still, the villagers were a hardy lot and got by on the twice-monthly clinic held here. They hoped for better access to medical care and knew that would come with the spring thaw as the roads cleared enough to allow rides into the city for hospital and specialty consults. A clinic would have been greatly appreciated here, but we all knew that our resources would be better utilized if directed elsewhere where the needs were greater.

I had coffee with the locals in the village center meeting place, a smoky, wood-stove-heated lodge where everyone gathered. We huddled on old lawn chairs around a plastic table and were served cups of oily, thick coffee. These were Albanian villages, and the villagers believed that their fight was far from over. In fact, they told me they were stockpiling weapons and preparing for increasing hostilities in the spring. “We will fight again.”

They planned to avenge lives, loves, and homes that had been lost forever amidst the carnage of earlier conflict. Further, they hoped that IRC would provide assistance solely to their side should more fighting break out. I tried to explain that our mandate was to remain neutral and nonjudgmental so that we could simply deliver the best care possible to whoever was victimized or persecuted. “We cannot support you in those plans; we can’t be part of that,” I explained.

There was, even in this bitter cold, fighting going on in nearby villages, which prevented us from venturing further for assessments. Although the people in this area predicted and even prepared for more war, it never materialized, perhaps due to the presence of the NATO peacekeeping force stationed throughout this volatile country. Or perhaps the lure of peace was even more enticing than the prospect of bitter, long-drawn-out hostilities.

Any increase in aid for this area never materialized either. The UN and donors, those to whom we proposed programs in the hopes of gaining funding for the work, were growing weary of the Balkans. The needs here were no longer quite as critical as they had been or currently were in so many other parts of the world. Without donor interest and money to fund the programs, there simply are no programs. The UN and donors felt that there were greater needs around the world that required their urgent attention and funds.

The potential loss of UN and NGO money and jobs concerned the national staff. The infusion of international aid had so boosted the economy that they felt certain that Macedonia would face a fiscal crisis once that aid was removed. One staffer jokingly remarked that perhaps the Albanians should renew their fight to keep the world interest and money here. That was not a new concept; it is an issue that concerns the world aid and development community. The possibility of deception by beneficiaries, by warlords and others who may prolong conflict in order to reap the benefits of world attention, international money and aid is a concern for all NGOs and donors who want to see their money spent the way they intended, not siphoned off to warlords and dictators and their cronies. The debate, to maintain the financial and humanitarian support of refugees and displaced in spite of the risks, continues even now. The answers are few, the needs are enormous, and we are all watchful, for our intent is to provide comfort and to stop misery, never to prolong it. The oversight by donors and donor agencies has appropriately tightened over the years. The required reports and proposals are sometimes overwhelming, but they are vital in determining true needs and establishing guidelines and parameters within which to provide the necessary aid. It is a far cry from the incredible lack of oversight and accountability in the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In those days, money was almost thrown at NGOs willing to help; accountability was not a great concern unless there were great gaps in the financial reports. Those changes have improved the delivery of aid; accountability makes us better at what we do.

The refugee camp in Shuto-Orizari, Roza’s home for so many years, closed in 2003. Many of those residents were moved to Katlanavo, the bar-rackslike camp whose numbers had dwindled to six hundred refugees, a far cry from the one thousand plus in each camp when I left in late January 2002. Still others chose to live with family and friends in Macedonia or elsewhere. Afraid to return home, afraid to take the first step, they waited, with fewer resources, fewer options, and little help. None of the refugees I met there, including Roza and her family, expressed any interest in relocating to the United States or anywhere else. Like Asma from Afghanistan and Grace from South Sudan, they wanted only to go home. One or two staff members, however, did want to leave, and had already started their paperwork to emigrate. Much like the Lost Boys of Sudan, they waited anxiously for word.

In 2015, a fierce gun battle erupted between police and militants not far from the rural village where I’d been warned years before that the fighting wasn’t over. In late 2017, the ringleader was sentenced to life in prison, the remaining twenty-six to lesser terms in prison.¹

I recently met several Kosovans in Boston. They’d come to the United States several years before for the same reasons that kept Roza and her family in Macedonia—fear of reprisals and still more trouble at home. None of them knew Roza or her family, and I am left to wonder if she stayed behind in Macedonia or somehow made her way home to Kosovo.

Few programs remain in Macedonia today, and fewer still throughout the Balkans. There will always be need there. There will likely always be greater need somewhere else as well.