Village of orphans tries to recover

Over and over, the children of this ethnic Albanian village draw houses - some with a bright sun in the sky, others with warplanes overhead.

As several children gather around a table to draw at a community center here, volunteer aide Elhame Haradinaj explains: "When we returned after the war, so many houses had been destroyed, and they became intensely interested in houses and how they were built."

While the youngsters relive the past and construct a future with crayons and paint, the adults are also trying to rebuild their lives, shattered after Serb troops attacked the village three years ago. A hundred children and youth under 18 lost one or both parents. Now Lubeniq, once famous for its rich creams and cheeses, is known as "the village of orphans."

As ex-Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, now on trial before a Hague tribunal, continues to deny war crimes and blame NATO and anti-Serb rebels for deaths in this area and elsewhere in Kosovo, the survivors are following the proceedings intently.

Yesterday Milosevic, who is acting as his own lawyer, ripped into the testimony of an ethnic Albanian doctor who had told the court he saw Serb troops kill six of his relatives.

"It is so difficult hearing him [Milosevic] say that people were killed by NATO and the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]," says Ms. Haradinaj, whose father died during the 1999 attack.

As part of Milosevic's aim to drive all Albanians from Kosovo, Yugoslav tanks and soldiers rolled into Lubeniq in the early morning of April 1, 1999, forcing people from their homes before looting them and setting them afire. Most of the women and children fled into the mountains toward the Albanian border. The Serbs herded the men together and shot 66 of them.

Since the war, most of the 700 residents have returned to Lubeniq, which lies at the foot of the Cursed Mountains in the western part of the province. Haradinaj says the massacre touched almost every family.

"The strong people - the pillars of the village - are gone now," she says. "The Milosevic regime tried to take away our leaders and destroy all the men ... and we are left with these children."

Krishnet Alimehaj is like many 12-year-olds. He likes to sing, he'll buckle down and study when pressed, and he knows what he wants to be when he grows up: a doctor. But he is at times withdrawn, at times given to outbursts, Haradinaj says. Both of his parents and a brother were killed in the 1999 attack.

Krishnet is among the more than 100 children who come to the community center every day to play games, paint, and learn songs and poetry.

Sevdie Ahmeti, a psychologist who works with Kosovo children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, says the children's memories of sadness cannot be erased, but they can slowly be replaced with memories of happiness. "At first the children draw what they know, what they feel and have been through," she says. "Many children begin by drawing pictures of massacres. But after a while, they begin to draw and focus on the future and their hopes and wishes."

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