Newsletter eng 14.qxd 4/17/2008 11:06 AM Page 1 NEWSLETTER of the ICRC Regional Delegation, covering Serbia, Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro Spring 2008 (PHOTO: © ICRC)(PHOTO: Young Red Cross volunteers discuss PHV projects at a workshop in Macedonia. RED CROSS PROGRAMME CATCHES ON IN THE REGION For over a decade now, the Macedonian as Youth and Dissemination Coordinators completion of the workshop, the young Red Cross has had great success carrying who are now running the programme in volunteers should put the knowledge they out a programme called Red Cross in Serbia. acquired to practical use by starting small Action / Promotion of Human Values (RCA- In mid January this year, a similar pilot projects for the benefit of their own local PHV). The programme is a Red Cross edu- phase was initiated in Albania, involving six communities. After the phase of creating cational tool, which, in a systematic, cost- Albanian Red Cross branches from Korcë, these small project is over, the authors of effective and interactive way, targets Tirana, Shkodra, Elbasan, Berat and Dures. the best and most successful ones will be young people in order to promote activism In late February, the same project phase was invited to the final workshop, due to be and culture of dialogue among them. It launched in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Red held in May, in Albania, and in June, in B-H. strives to do so by entwining the spreading Cross branches of Brcko, Modrica, Lukavac, The best achievers from these workshops of the knowledge of the Red Cross and Red Orasje, Gorazde, Trebinje and Foca. During will be invited to the international RCA- Crescent Movement and its principles the initial implementation phase, work- PHV summer camp scheduled for August (known in the Red Cross lingo as “dissemi- shops were held for some 30 junior Red this year in Struga, Macedonia. nation”) with humanitarian action. It was Cross volunteers from each branch, who developed in Macedonia within the Ma- were trained in basic project management, cedonian Red Cross with the support of communication and ways of putting in Programme History ICRC and the Norwegian Red Cross. Many practice Red Cross values through concrete Since 1998, the ICRC in Macedonia has National Societies from the region and social action. They not only learned how to actively pursued the implementation wider afield have been acquainted with make community-needs assessments, de- of the PHV programme. The project, RCA-PHV and expressed interest in apply- velop and document small projects, but initiated in 1996 in co-operation with ing it in their own environment. they also engaged in activities designed to the National Red Cross and approved Three National Societies in the region have help them adopt positive human values, get by the Ministry of Education, was origi- already initiated the process of implement- to know the principles of humanitarian nally aimed at enhancing inter-ethnic ing the programme so far. The first was the action and grasp the basics of international communication among young people Serbian Red Cross, which appointed a humanitarian law. of different ethnic backgrounds. The National RCA-PHV Coordinator and laun- These workshops applied a new working project is raising the image of the Red ched a pilot project in late 2006. It resulted model of the RCA-PHV programme, where Cross, boosting the number of volun- in the creation of a working group made complete training is conducted on field teers and assisting dissemination up of Serbian Red Cross volunteers as well level, within the local branch. After the among the young. 1 Newsletter eng 14.qxd 4/17/2008 11:06 AM Page 2 Women and the Missing LIVING BETWEEN HOPE AND DESPAIR A decade of armed conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s caused nearly 35,000 people to disappear. For the women left behind, one of the worst consequences of their disappearance is the long and agonizing wait for news about their missing husbands, sons, brothers and fathers. Here are the stories of two of them. Olja: Olja's husband Rade, who used to which she served as secretary-general. from a recovered bone, some, like Dzidza, run a well-known travel agency in Koso- The work had a therapeutic value for Olja either remained sceptical or refused to vo, was kidnapped in August 1999 in and helped her adopt a constructive confront the dreaded fears that their Pristina, without his wife ever finding out approach which benefited both herself loved ones may not be alive. how or why. Taking a single bag with her, and others. “The biggest joy is to have a child, the It saw her through the biggest tragedy is to have him taken most difficult moments, away,” says Dzidza, summing up her which came in Sep- grief. tember 2002 when she was finally given her In 2005, she finally agreed to give a blood husband's remains sample after a neighbour talked her into identified through a it. Two years later, Dzidza received news (PHOTO: Nick Danziger © ICRC)(PHOTO: DNA analysis. But the that one of her sons had been identified, grief she felt that day but they couldn't tell which one because was also mixed with they were too close in age (Almir was relief that her painful born in 1977, Azmir in 1974). Her husband search was finally over Abdullah was also identified through a and that she was now single bone, the only one they have able to go on with her recovered of his from a mass grave. At Olja lights a candle for her husband's soul. life. that moment, everything went black The families of more than 17,000 persons missing as a result of the 1990s' conflicts Olja fled Kosovo only to find herself in in former Yugoslavia are still waiting for news on their missing relatives. They have Belgrade with no work, no place to live the right to know the fate of their loved ones. The ICRC persists in reminding the and no money to buy food. What she did authorities of their responsibility to address this fundamental right of the families have was the burden of a missing hus- by releasing official information on the whereabouts of people unaccounted for. It band, an interrupted life and no visible also provides material, psycho-social and technical support to family associations way out. of the missing, largely made up of women, and helps ensure that their interests are One day, she read in the newspaper that represented in various forums. there were other people like her. She tried to contact them to share experiences and Dzidza: For 12 long years, Dzidza lived in around her, as her darkest fears had been make sure she wasn't forgetting to do hope of finding her two sons and hus- confirmed. something she could be doing to find out band alive after they went missing in Today, Dzidza regularly visits the memori- what happened to her husband. She Srebrenica in 1995. al near Srebrenica, where one of her Before DNA testing became available, brothers is also buried. Although she now “(These three years,) I was lost and felt there was only the Book of Belongings - lives beyond grief, she exists on her mem- as if I had no body, no soul, no feel- two photo albums published by the ICRC, ories only and dreams of bringing peace ings… That state of helplessness and showing clothing and belongings found to the souls of Abdullah, Almir and Azmir. pain is indescribable. I was almost with the remains. In unaware of my own existence and 2001, Dzidza leafed could feel nothing but how torn apart through every page of I was. Horror!” the thick albums but found nothing that went to a meeting the ICRC organised for belonged to her hus- the families of missing persons. She band and sons. “I prayed found them all equally disturbed, unhap- to God not to recognize Nick Danziger © ICRC)(PHOTO: py and helpless, but at least there was anything, even though I someone listening to them. The ICRC sug- wanted to end this gested that they join forces and form an uncertainty,”she says. association to make themselves heard - When DNA became a an idea they readily embraced. method of matching a For three years, Olja devoted all of her living relative's blood time and effort to the association, in sample to one taken Dzidza prays at the tomb of one of her brothers. 2 Newsletter eng 14.qxd 4/17/2008 11:06 AM Page 3 Family Detention Visits LONG AWAITED REUNIONS ICRC assistance in maintaining links thankful for being able between detainees and their families is to see each other for one of its longest-standing activities in even that long. Grand- the region. For many of those arrested fathers seeing their during the 1991-95 conflict in Croatia, the grandchildren for the family visits organized by the ICRC first time, daughters remain, even now, more than 10 years bringing their fiancés after the conflict, the only way to main- for the father to meet… Montanari Agnes © ICRC)(PHOTO: tain regular eye-to-eye contact with their It is hard to pass any families who moved to live in Serbia. judgements in such si- Most of them are serving their sentences tuations. The trip back in Lepoglava, a little town in north-west seems to be longer and Croatia, close to the border with Slovenia. is certainly much qui- Once in three months, the detainees' fam- eter as the emotions ilies, led by an ICRC staff, set out on a jour- and the tiredness are ney from Belgrade in the early morning overwhelming.