the kosovo crisis

"I Have Become a Refugee"

by Karen Robbins, Writer/Researcher

Flora is a refugee. She lives with strangers and owns only a sweater and an extra pair of pants.

But just a month ago, she was a project field monitor for CARE in Kosovo. She lived with her family in a suburb of the provincial capital of Pristina populated mostly with ethnic Albanians. As part of her job, Flora went from village to village, helping rural families rebuild their homes, damaged by shelling during Kosovo's year-long civil war.

Many of the people Flora was helping were sharing their homes with extended families, friends or even complete strangers who had fled their own homes and villages during the war.

Now, Flora herself is living with strangers in Macedonia. She has become another victim of the conflict in Kosovo.

Flora recalls, "My family thought that we would be safe in Pristina. But on March 29, the police ordered us out of our house. We didn't have time to pack our valuables, and I was only able to pick up an extra sweater and pair of pants. My parents are elderly and they told my brothers and sisters to go ahead without them. They didn't think they could survive the trip to Macedonia, but I talked them into joining us. Now they are so glad they did."

Flora is unable to describe her family's long journey without breaking into tears. "The things I saw were terrible and I cannot talk about them," Flora says. However, she smiles faintly when recalling how she found the energy to sprint over the border into Macedonia at the end of her long trek.

Flora and her family were lucky to arrive at the Blace border crossing before the massive influx that followed a few days later turned the "no-man's land" area into a muddy waiting area for tens of thousands of newly arrived refugees. However, her family arrived in Macedonia without any place to stay, or without any money to find an apartment.

"We walked up and down the streets of Skopje looking for a place to stay," Flora says. "Finally, someone told us to look for shelter in Gostivar, where local residents were giving rooms to refugees. We were able to find two rooms in a home, where my family of nine people is living. We are all together, except for one sister who is still missing."

Flora is one of at least seven CARE staff from Kosovo forced to flee to Macedonia. Even though several of them are still searching for missing family members, and are themselves without a permanent home, they have all rejoined CARE's efforts to help other Kosovar refugees living in camps and at transit centers in Macedonia.

CARE is helping to provide food and other emergency relief supplies to both refugees and host families, and is helping to reunite families, especially unaccompanied children with their parents. Flora says, "When I worked for CARE in Kosovo, I would often see 20 or 25 people living together in one house because they had lost their own homes. Now that's me. I have become a refugee."

About the Author:
Karen Robbins, a CARE grant writer based in Atlanta, met Flora in Pristina the week before CARE's programs were suspended. Robbins was sent to Kosovo to help develop new programs for CARE in Yugoslavia, and was evacuated with the rest of the international staff on March 20. She traveled with the CARE team to Skopje, Macedonia, to help start up the emergency refugee response program before returning to Atlanta on April 7. Other staff from Kosovo learned of Flora's whereabouts in Gostivar, and she was reunited with the CARE team on April 6.

Note: Flora is a pseudonym for a CARE national staff member who did not want her name used.