02/14/2018

Federal Foreign Minister visits the Western Balkans

Gabriel should demonstrate humaneness and provide help for the Roma and Ashkali in Kosovo

We are asking Gabriel to demonstrate humaneness, to provide help for the poorest of the poor, and to address their situation in the talks with the Kosovo government. Photo: SPD Saar via Flickr

On the occasion of Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s visit to the Western Balkans, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) would like to draw attention to the desperate situation of the Roma, the Ashkali, and the Balkan Egyptians in Kosovo. “We are asking Gabriel to demonstrate humaneness, to provide help for the poorest of the poor, and to address their situation in the talks with the Kosovo government. The Roma, Ashkali, and Balkan Egyptians and their children are living on the margins of society, often in unspeakable living conditions – and many of them are forced to flee to Germany and Western Europe,” stated Jasna Causevic, the STP’s expert on South-Eastern Europe, in Göttingen on Wednesday. “It is necessary to improve the situation of the Roma and the Ashkali in Kosovo in order stop people from leaving the country – and to avoid deportations of asylum seekers who are not allowed to stay in Germany.”

“Many of the approximately 37,500 Roma and Ashkali in Kosovo are so poor that they don’t know how to feed their children the next day. Some don’t even have clean drinking water, let alone electricity. There is nobody who is willing to give them work or to provide housing, so they can’t pay for medical treatment – and many children can’t be educated because the parents often refuse to send them to school due to legitimate fears of racist abuse,” Causevic stated. “Thus, many members of these minorities are so desperate that they try to find a new home in Western Europe, even though many have requested asylum here before and were sent back to Kosovo. Thus, if they want to survive and to take care of their children, they have no choice but to live a life in illegality.”

Germany contributed to this vicious circle of exclusion when Kosovo was declared a safe country of origin, so that many Roma and Ashkali who were born and raised in Germany could be deported, the STP criticized. This ruthless policy has destroyed the future of many children and adolescents. For Germany, it would now be all the more important to demonstrate humaneness, to put an end to everyday discrimination and marginalization at least in Kosovo, and to initiate an “honest, purposeful reintegration policy”.

In 1999 – immediately after the NATO intervention in Kosovo – 130,000 of the 150,000 Roma and Ashkali had to flee from murder, rape, kidnappings and torture. Further, they are suffering from racist persecution by nationalist Albanians to this day. 14,000 of the 19,000 houses of the minority were destroyed under the eyes of the NATO and KFOR forces, and only a few of the houses have so far been rebuilt.

Header Photo: SPD Saar via Flickr