Interviews

Forced to move repeatedly with his family throughout 1998, Gentrit spent most of the war moving between villages and staying in the homes of relatives or strangers who offered them shelter in Prishtina. As a child, he remembers adapting quickly to these circumstances, experiencing displacement almost as an ordinary move from one place to another, without fully understanding the danger surrounding him. Over the course of two years (1998 – 1999), he changed schools six times. One of the most painful moments came during the final expulsion by train in 1999, when Serbian forces separated his father from the rest of the family, leaving them terrified that they might never see him again. His father’s return to the train carriage remains one of Gentrit’s clearest memories. A moment of relief and hope amid fear and uncertainty. Gentrit also speaks about the sense of guilt he experienced after returning to Kosovo, when he found his relatives on the brink of starvation, while he himself had been very well cared for and fed by an Albanian host family in North Macedonia.

Ali Misimi’s sociology studies were interrupted by the war, at the time he and his family were living in the Medrese neighbourhood of Prishtina. He was expelled from his home and transported by train, eventually arriving at the Stenkovec 2 refugee camp in North Macedonia. One particularly striking detail he recalls is that, amid the violence and expulsions, a Serbian police officer burst into tears while escorting people towards the trains with a weapon in his hands. Misimi was later transferred to a refugee camp in Norway and returned to Kosovo following the deployment of NATO troops.

After spending several days hiding in an apartment with sixteen relatives, Mustafa’s family was forced by Serbian paramilitary forces to join the long columns of people heading towards the train station in Prishtina. During the expulsion, he saw burned bodies near the railway tracks, and recalls the profound silence that fell over the crowd after news spread of the killing of Fehmi Agani. In Blace, exhaustion, fear, and exploitation by criminal groups shaped the refugees’ daily lives until families from Struga opened their homes to shelter them, offering a remarkable sense of solidarity that he still remembers today, more than two decades later.

Ganimete Morina and Sherife Luta share their experiences as refugees during the war in Kosovo in 1999. Ganimete, only nine years old at the time, was forced to flee Samadrexhë in Suharekë with her family as shelling drew closer. Together with her father, Sali Morina, she recounts their flight from one village to another, threats from Serbian forces, and the family’s efforts to survive and remain together despite the extraordinary circumstances. Sherife Luta, meanwhile, recalls fleeing Ivaja in Kaçanik with her seven-month-old daughter in her arms. A moment captured in a photograph that became a symbol of the exodus of Kosovar refugees. She recounts nights spent in the mountains under shelling, the separation of families, crossing the border in harsh winter conditions, and the constant anxiety over her baby’s survival, while her husband had remained behind to fight.

Arlinda Gashi Jakupi, newly married and the mother of a nine-month-old daughter, remained in Prishtina throughout most of the NATO bombing campaign. She documented her experiences in a diary dedicated to her daughter, Alba. On the 6th of May 1999, her family was expelled by train. Near Miradi, Serbian forces stopped the train and forced the passengers into a field, where they were threatened with execution and the men were separated from their families.
Faik Hyseni, a former technician at Radio Television of Prishtina (RTP), fled his home together with his extended family after Serbian forces attacked neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Prishtina. They joined a column of civilians, where they were threatened, robbed, and forced to make their way towards the train station. Hyseni recalls the expulsion and the profound uncertainty experienced throughout this period.

Adelina Emini was 14 years old when she was expelled from her home together with her family. After spending four days in Blace, the family remained at the Stenkovec refugee camp for three weeks before being granted refugee status in the Netherlands. They returned to Kosovo in September 1999. Afrim Haxhiaj, a student living in the Dragodan/Arbëria neighbourhood of Prishtina, was expelled by train towards what was then Macedonia. In Blace, Skopje, and Tetovo, he received support from Albanian families and volunteers. He later attempted to join the Kosovo Liberation Army and eventually resettled in the United States through a refugee programme.

Arbrore Kadriu was still a child when the war reached Prishtina. She remembers the fear that gripped the city, the police raid on her home, and the separation of her family during the expulsion. After the war, she worked three jobs at the same time. Years later, after becoming a mother, when her daughter reached the age Arbrore had been during the exodus, the memories of the war resurfaced. She sought therapy and now shares her experience of recovery as part of the museum’s documentation. Arita Suhodolli lived in North Mitrovica and left Kosovo during the war by an unusual route, travelling by train through Serbia towards Montenegro. Throughout the journey, her father negotiated with the police to secure the family’s departure. To this day, the family has not returned to their apartment in northern Mitrovica, which was located in a predominantly Serb area. Arita remembers the war through the sudden changes in everyday life, the departure from home, and the uncertainty surrounding the decisions the adults had to make.

Dibran Istrefi was nine years old when Serbian forces burned down his family home in 1998, forcing him to flee and become displaced several times among villages in the Shala region. During the spring of 1999, he remembers taking shelter with relatives and other local residents, seeing NATO aircraft in the sky, and witnessing displaced families near Mitrovica. He also recalls the solidarity of local residents, who offered those forced from their homes water, bread, and shelter. Sherife Luta was a young mother when she was forced to flee Ivaja in March 1999. Carrying her seven-month-old daughter, Besiana, in her arms, she made her way through the mountains, recalling the days spent under bombardment, the journey towards what was then Macedonia, and the separation from her husband, who had remained behind to fight.