Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 5 • Giuseppe De Sario, Laura Corradi, Patricia Ruiz, Enrica Capussotti
cially for younger generations, the possibility of sharing common experiences
came to an end. Even when they belonged to Rom communities, the
children who continued to attend parallel (separate Albanian) schools were
pressured to adhere to and support the resistance. This phenomenon was
confirmed by Ylber [age: 21, male], Rexhi’s son. Born in Vucitrn, he lives
in Rimini with his wife and his son, who is a few months old.
At a host centre in Rimini, Blerta [age: 56, female] and her husband Andri
[male] also found hospitality. Blerta had always lived in Pristina, where
she worked in a factory and belonged to a Rom folkloric music group.
Now, in Italy, her husband has been driven by need to return to work in a
factory in Rimini, even though he feels too old for that kind of employment.
Blerta, like many other Romany, lost everything when she fled. She
hopes to return to Kosovo one day. Her greatest fear is that of dying in
Italy and not being buried in her homeland.
Florence, Central Italy
In the city of Florence, meetings have taken place to unite the Romany of
Islamic faith. Some members of this community are native speakers of
Albanian, or Hascalje. Among these is the family of Tahir [age: 40, male],
who come from Vucitrn. Tahir is an engineer who worked in a factory from
1987 to 1991, when he left his job to avoid having to vow allegiance to the
Serbian government. Since then he has always lived in Italy, and has only
made periodic trips to Kosovo to see his wife and four children. After the
NATO intervention, and with the arrival of a KLA military force, his family
was forced to leave their home and possessions. This latest affront was
just one more episode in the hostilities suffered by the Serbs during the
1990s, the worst period being the spring of 1999, during the NATO bombings.
Since November of 1999, Tahir’s family has regrouped in Italy, completely
reunited with the arrival of Sofia [age: 35, female] and their four
children, (among which are Baftjar [age: 18, male] and Rozafa [age: 15,
female]). Sofia, bewildered, told of the hardships she and her family had
to endure: being forced to abandon their home and being mistreated by the
Albanians, when their common language and religion had made them feel
closer to the Albanians than to the Serbs. Before this, however, she had
also enjoyed good relations with the Serbs, and especially with the many
who resided in the apartment building she had lived in before getting married.
Their children, Rozafa and Baftjar, spoke of the insults and intimidation
they suffered in the parallel Albanian school they attended during the
late 1990s. Although they had chosen to continue studying in Albanian
(their mother tongue), ties with their classmates steadily deteriorated at
school. At the same time, outside the school and on the streets, they feared
the Serbian police searches just as much as the Albanians did. For these
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