Roma mothers appeal to world

Kumanovo 08.11.1999

To all democratic civilized human nations and to all government of the western countries and to all European Community.

In the name of the humanity and human solidarity, we, the Roma mothers, want to address to you this Appeal

We, Roma mothers from Kosovo, address this appeal to all the mothers all over the world. At the moment we are in the hardest times in our history since our arrival in Kosovo many centuries ago.

This tragedy swept away all our possessions gained by our hard work. Our European standard of living, our houses with modern equipment all is gone for good, swept by the robbers, fire-raisers and Albanian terrorists. The will in our faces and in the faces of our children turn to tears,while instead of warmth in our hearts now is ache, sorrow for lost place and freedom, sorrow for lost job and dignity. In just one split of a second our serene family life turned to fear and uncertainty. Our living became nomad, as we never had one like this.

We live in the camp, in tents where conditions are so bad. We have rains, floods in the tents, wet blankets and sponges on the beds where we lay with our children. With such bad conditions came diseases such as: anemies, Flu, dehydration, Bronchitis, Asthma and in the worst cases Hepatitis. Because of the fact that medical staff in the camp Stenkovac 2 is composed only of Albanians we simply can't expect proper care for us.

Also we can't expect proper special medical care in Tetovo as the most of the doctors are also Albanians and we are suffering because of them. All this results with bad conditions among us, mothers and among our children, so few days ago one of the mothers died.

In such bad conditions in the tents live 13 newborn babies, from one-day age up to two months, also 76 incline women and 196 mother still breast freezing their babies. Because of bad nourishing, low caloric food (only peppers and salt cheese) we have lot of sick women, insights, breast-feeding.

This tragedy in form of genocide and these poor conditions for living may cause the death of many children and us, the mothers. So we address this APPEAL to all the women all over the world to give their sympathy to us the mothers in camp Stenkovac 2 and to our children. We appeal to all humanitarian organisations and to all women to demonstrate and to protest, to make pressure to their governments to take us to their countries so we can feel again what we have lost, our peace, jobs, freedom, the future of our children, our peaceful and serene family life-with this, the women allover the world will express their humanity which is incorporated in their souls.

Mothers all over the world, as we are writing this appeal to you, our hands are frozen, the only light is the light of the candle which flame is swinging by the wind in our tent.

Instead the heat from the stove, our children's hearts is warmth only by our motherly love and our hopes for our better future. Mothers all over the world, please help us, help our children in this worst times in our living.

Roma Mothers from Kosovo who are in Stenkovac 2 Refugee camp in Macedonia

Ashmet Elezovski, member of board the Roma National Congress
[email protected]
romanationalcongress.org
[email protected]

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