Serbia raped women\
Serbs Rape Albanian Women at Border
SKOPJE, Macedonia--Serbian border guards have taken to adding one more atrocity to their campaign of driving ethnic Albanians from their homes in the province of Kosovo -- rape.
The women are reluctant to talk about what happens in the border post at Monice, though which more than 200,000 people have been herded over the last few weeks. But the faraway stares in their tearful eyes, their torn clothing, and the despair of their families speaks volumes.
According to human rights groups and investigators from the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, and some of the women themselves, Kosovo Albanian women are being picked out at the border as they wait with their families to cross into Albania, taken to a building not far away, and raped.
"There have been so many credible reports of this sort of thing that we are convinced it is part of a systematic campaign of sexual abuse," said a member of the tribunal team in Kukes, the nearest town to the border crossing.
The Serbs' method is simple. They select women as they approach the final crossing point with their families, who are ordered to keep traveling into Albania. The women are then taken away, weeping and begging for their lives. Hours, perhaps a day passes, during which they are raped and then sent away.
At Monice, their families keep a vigil standing in silent huddles by the metal barrier. Reluctant to admit what is happening to their daughters, these members of a society that views rape as the ultimate shame for a woman say, "We were separated, and praying that the Serbs will let them live."
When the young women are reunited with their families, there is no celebration that they have survived. They fall in silence into their parents' arms. Hiding their faces, they rejoin the huge throng of refugees, in silence.
Overwhelmed by the logistics of coping with an influx of refugees, the Albanian authorities and the few aid agencies that have reacted to the Kosovo catastrophe have been unable to offer any kind of help to the rape victims.
Other women, like one who spoke with Washington Post reporters, were raped by Serb soldiers before they were forced into trains that took them into exile.
The Women's Center in Albania is calling for relief for the refugees, especially women and children. It supports the NATO bombing as an attempt to save the Kosovar Albanians.
The address of the Albanian Women's Center is P.O. Box 2418, Tirana, Albania. Tel/fax: +355-42-23693.
--info from Washington Post, 4/13, The Times of London, 4/6
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