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Tragedy of the Elderly in Kosovo
By Fergal Keane BBC News, May 6, 1999 Hanusha Marina: Lived in Kosovo for more than 100 years. Among the hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees are many old people who wonder if they will ever see their homes again. None more so than Hanusha Marina. For more than 100 years she has lived in Kosovo. She has seen two world wars and the rise and fall of Communism. For her and her family, now in Kukes in northern Albania, the most important question is: will she ever return home? She says: "I lived through the Nazis but I've never known anything as bad as this." We also met a 76-year-old, paralysed from the waist down, who spent four days reaching Albania. She travelled in a ramshackle vehicle
with her family. Serbs raided her house, she said, but her daughter
managed to hide her jewellery. It was a small victory in the face of
terror. But among the pensioners living in Kukes she is one of the luckier ones. She has her family. Those with nobody to take care of them, end up in hospital in the town of Kukes. It is overcrowded and there is little dignity for the old. Doctors have begun transferring the
elderly to a refugee camp, where they will at least get good medical
care. They will also close to an air strip, from where many will soon
be flown south. But with aid agencies warning that the area could be targeted by Serb artillery, it seems they face yet another traumatic journey.
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