{"id":1919,"date":"2023-01-30T21:09:43","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T21:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2023-01-30T21:09:43","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T21:09:43","slug":"silvana-marinkoviq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/silvana-marinkoviq\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Silvana Marinkoviq"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Interviewer: Could you introduce yourself first?
\nSilvana Marinkovi\u0107: I am Silvana Marinkovi\u0107. By the way, I am a displaced person from the village of Slivovo. I was born in Gra\u010danica, I lived in Gra\u010danica, but I was married in Slivovo, where since 1999, we were forced to leave the village of Slivovo, which is about 14 kilometers from here, towards the town of Gnjilane. Because um, at night, they shot at the village. I had two small children then. One was then seven months old, one was three years old. And because of security, I had to come to Gracanica with my family. Unfortunately, the next day, my husband, hoping that he would be able to keep the village, because at that time everyone had to leave our village for safety reasons, in a line with tractors, we all managed how we could. Someone had a car, someone had a tractor. He thought that he would manage to get people back there, but he didn’t. Everyone left the village that day. So, I left the village on the 18th in the evening of June 1999, and the others all left on June 19. Unfortunately, on that same day, my husband was kidnapped by Albanian neighbors. He started on his way to Smederevo, but he didn’t even manage to reach Gnjilane. He was stopped in the village of Labjane and kidnapped along with a neighbor and a man who happened to come that day to the village of Slivovo to evict our neighbor. However, from that day on, every trace of them is lost, and so after the 23 years, we have no information about them, whether they are alive or not. At the beginning, I had information through Albanian neighbors that… that he was alive and that he was in the camps. They were moved from those camps on the 15th – 20th day. I found out more than once which camp he was in. Normally, I always reported it to KFOR, which was there at the time. However, it took them 15 days to get ready and go check out the place. However, when they leave after the 15th day, of course, they can only find evidence that someone lived there, because there were some blankets down there, some tin plates thrown down, scattered. However, the people were never found. It was a big nightmare for us. Little children, we were in displacement. However, no one thought about whether we were on the streets, whether we were housed somewhere, whether we had anything. Because, at that time, I went out in one tracksuit, one T-shirt and nothing else. However, I didn’t think about it at all because it was important for me to know the fate of my husband. Because it’s very hard when you think that just overnight everything collapses and everything changes. Something happens that a person least hopes for in life. Even after 23 years, we can’t look forward to weddings or celebrations, because even at the 23rd year, living in uncertainty, not knowing what exactly happened, is very difficult. It is also difficult when you hear various stories and various events. What hurts us all as a family of kidnapped people the most is the yellow house. And it is also very difficult and very painful to know that there is evidence and that it is known who kidnapped or killed someone, but that evidence has not been verified, nor have the perpetrators of those crimes been brought to justice. Even after 23 years, no one was punished for those crimes. I can say about my husband that I know who kidnapped him, but not only were they not heard and arrested for it, they were even rewarded. They were awarded by KFOR and one of them started working in KFOR and later at the UN. And one of them worked in the KPS Police, even though it is known that they are kidnappers, there is evidence for that. There are also statements made by Albanian neighbors at the time. But here, without any progress and without any significance, no matter that we have all this evidence, it has no meaning for us, families. Everything is very difficult. It is also difficult to live outside your home. It’s hard to live without anything, but the hardest thing is to live in uncertainty and you don’t know what happened, and you don’t know if it will ever be solved, and if it will ever be found out. Because, unfortunately, many members of our families passed away without knowing the fate of their loved ones, which was their only goal in life, which is the same for me now. Besides my goal is to lead my children on the right path, my second goal in life is to find out the fate of my husband. However, as things stand for now, I don’t think anyone is interested in solving it. That someone hides the evidence very well, hides the perpetrators of those crimes. Therefore, they are also participants in these crimes. However, no matter they told me all this, no one had an understanding of it. Although we often went to various meetings and talked a lot and made statements and gave evidence, it did not bear any fruit. At the beginning, hopes were much higher. We were hoping that someone would take action because KFOR was the first to do it, in June 1999. In August 1999, the UN Police came, immediately after that the international police came, and EULEX came, however, there was no information for us, no knowledge. Back then, we had to give statements every three months because KFOR then changed every three months. However, KFOR, which was present and to whom we gave statements at the time, left after three months, it does not exist anywhere. Do they throw it away, do they cancel it?! At the beginning it was oral, then later when we saw that this, no… no way, then we had to, um, write,
\nInterviewer: How do you remember the period before the war?
\nSilvana Marinkovi\u0107: Life was much better than now. Well, at least we were able to go to bed in the evening peacefully and calmly to fall asleep without any big thoughts. The only thing we could think about at that time was anything… a plan for tomorrow, what are we going to do. However, it is quite different now. We fall asleep and wake up in our thoughts, what will happen next. Will we ever find out the fate of our loved ones?
\nInterviewer: Do you think we can put the war behind us and build a better society in Kosovo together?
\nSilvana Marinkovi\u0107: Well, that depends at least on the residents, eh. Maybe… I believe that everyone would like this, for all of this to be sorted out, because nobody likes to get killed and nobody likes to… to happen what happened once. However, this does not depend on the people at all, on the residents. It mostly depends on the politicians. Well, as far as Kosovo is concerned, it mostly depends on the West, on the Western powers. I think they run the main policy. Their main word is in all this. I could understand that from my previous experience that they… that they were the ones who protected this and the perpetrators of those crimes. That they watched it all from the side, that they never reacted. So I think that they are… all of them, the future of all those who live in the territory of Kosovo depends on them. However, I am of the opinion that I would not want my children to stay here to live, I would prefer them to move out of here. Although 23 years have passed, I think that for us Serbs who live in the area of \u200b\u200bKosovo and Metohija, there is still not complete freedom, because we are still not free… we do not have freedom of movement, we do not have freedom of expression in our native language. Even today, various incidents happen, be it on the street or in a cafe, or in a shopping center. Basically, we still face this, with… with insecurity and so for now there is very little hope for survival here. And also this one, as far as employment is concerned, young people have nowhere to get a job, they have no prospects.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Interviewer: Could you introduce yourself first? Silvana Marinkovi\u0107: I am Silvana Marinkovi\u0107. By the way, I am a displaced person from the village of Slivovo. I was born in Gra\u010danica, I lived in Gra\u010danica, but I was married in Slivovo, where since 1999, we were forced to leave the village of Slivovo, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1928,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/1928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofrefugees-ks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}