 |  |  |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
| | |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
Pristina: British troops in Kosovo have launched a "granny run" to protect elderly Serbian women from a campaign of intimidation and violence run by ethnic Albanians bent on revenge.
The need for soldiers to step up this protection in Pristina was highlighted last week after an 80-year-old woman was found drowned in her bathtub.
An officer with the Royal Irish Regiment, Captain Sean Lundy, is one of those given responsibility for making regular checks on the women.
On one visit last week to Mrs Nadezda Svetkovic, 65, - known to the group as Granny Smith - the necessity of these patrols was underlined.
Shortly before Captain Lundy's patrol arrived, teenagers on bicycles had been throwing stones at her windows. She had also received a visit from an Albanian stranger who barged in and laid claim to her house, calling himself a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
An ominous note had been placed on Granny Smith's door in Albanian which read, "Don't Touch, KLA", and was signed, "Lulzim Osmani from Drenica".
It was the latest attempt by ethnic Albanians to intimidate Mrs Svetkovic. A few weeks previously a group of thugs had barged into her home and robbed her, giving her just three hours to leave home or be killed.
"When we found her, all her windows had been bashed in and Granny Smith was cringing in a corner," Captain Lundy said. "I worked in Northern Ireland but I've never quite seen anything like this cycle of revenge."
The assailants' primary objective is to drive out the Serbian grandmothers and take their flats for their own families, whose homes have been destroyed in a year of heavy fighting.