the situation of Roma in Kosovo and Kosovo Roma in Diaspora Romano Them
Before the war, Kosovo was the home to 120,000 to 150,000 Roma. A first Romani presence in Kosovo has been traced back to the 14th century (1394) in the town of Prizren. Roma in Kosovo enjoyed a comparatively high living standard. They had their own institutions, news papers and theatres. The Roma Mahala in Kosovska Mitrovica was one of the oldest and largest Romani settlements in the region with its own infrastructure.
Kosovo Roma became the biggest “collateral damage” of the nationalist conflict between Kosovo Serbs and Albanians. More than 100,000 Roma were chased from Kosovo in the aftermath of war. Romani settlements such as the Fabricka Mahala in Kosovska Mitrovica and the Roma Mahala in Pristina were burned down and looted in acts of reprisal and retaliation.
Today, the Roma community in Kosovo counts merely a few thousand people. Most of them live in a destitute condition at the margins of the Kosovo society. They have no voice in Kosovo society. Political participation including in the negotiations surrounding the Kosovo status does not exist.
The majority of Kosovo Roma live in diaspora, most of them in Serbia and Montenegro, many in refugee or IDP camps. There are also smaller Kosovo Roma communities in Macedonia and in Bosnia. Eight years after the end of the war, their status as well as the status of many of the ten thousands Roma who escaped to Western Europe is still not resolved.
By creating this website, we want to inform about a community which has fallen into oblivion. We also aim to provide a platform for exchange between Roma from Kosovo hoping that we can still bring about a policy-change necessary to put an end to years of suffering and to restore human dignity.
Devlesa! May 2008