Selman Hoti shares his memories of war
I am Selman from Kosovo and I would like to share my personal experience with my Coda brothers and sisters from Ukraine who are facing Russian aggression and terror.
In 1999, I was 19 years old when Kosovo faced the Serbian aggression and terror. I remember the night when war sirens started howling in my city. We were happy because NATO started to bomb Serbian military to stop massacres against the Albanian population. I thought that this will end soon and we would be free. However, the barbarians became furious and launched attacks on civilians killing, burning and destroying everything. We lived in a nice small house in the Prizren suburbs and the night after, we had to move into the center as we thought it would be safer. We were sheltered for 30 days in my Deaf uncle’s house. My parents, my uncle and his wife, all of them Deaf, and six Codas. My uncle’s daughter with her husband and two children were also with us. I remember all of us sleeping in one room. It made us feel safer.
It was the first time that my parents, especially my father who has always been the bravest and strongest of our family, was so dependent on us Codas since we could listen to the radio. We listened to the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, or the BBC as Serbian media and their propaganda was the same as Russian media today.
In those horrible days, I felt we were forgotten by the world and God himself. The bathroom was the only place I went to cry about our fate. I was not ready to die. I didn’t want to live that enslaved life. I was afraid about the fate of my parents, and my siblings as well. Days passed, some full of hope that the war would end. Most days were full of fear of instantaneous death. Food was scarce, money was out and I could recognize in my parent’s faces the toil of what they will put on the table for the next meal. We were forced to leave our homeland to save our lives. We have lost a lot of family members especially from my father’s side.
I understand that no matter how much the world is on your side and with you, you are the ones who are suffering every moment of Russian barbarism. I understand that you feel abandoned and alone in this battle and that’s true. I understand that in this time no word of courage or suggestion means anything as you today are facing with life and death and you have to live through it. I know that you will lose loved ones, your homes. One thing is for sure: Unity and love for parents, family and homeland will keep you strong and that one day you will be freed from evil.