Koloshi was seriously injured when a mine exploded by the border in 1999. His left leg was amputated below the knee and half of his right foot. He walks with difficulty, with the help of two crutches, and has had to repair his own prostheses to ensure he can remain mobile.

For more than three years, he has been using sheet metal, iron, wood and leather to maintain his outdated prostheses, but his health is deteriorating.

“I have great difficulty walking. I am afraid that my legs are getting infected, because the prostheses are hurting me,” Koloshi told BIRN.

Koloshi is just one of hundreds who have been crippled by the explosion of mines laid by Yugoslav forces during the Kosovo war in 1999 in the Albania-Kosovo border area, where there are 30 villages divided between the municipalities of Kukes, Has and Tropoja.

After NATO began its bombing campaign in March 1999 to make Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end his violent repression of Kosovo Albanians and pull his forces out, the border area with Albania was subjected to systematic bombardment by Yugoslav Army artillery and there were Serbian paramilitary attacks inside Albanian territory.

Over 3,350 shells were dropped on the border area and a large number of anti-personnel mines were laid, resulting in a lot of unexploded ordnance. After the Kosovo war ended in June 1999, it took a decade for all these potentially lethal devices to be removed by mine-clearance experts.

Since the end of the war, more than 268 people have been injured, including 34 who lost their lives, 12 who lost their sight, 54 who were severely crippled and 168 others who suffered other injuries. The worst-affected area has been Tropoja, with 140 injured, followed by Hasi with 88 and Kukes with 40.

For those who were injured by Serbian mines in the area, the nightmare has continued ever since, as healthcare services are almost non-existent in the area and they lack the vital care and rehabilitation they need to live normal lives.

‘Half my pension goes on medicines’

Yugoslav Army soldiers arrive at the Yugoslav-Albanian border crossing at Morina, near Kukes in April 1999 to lay mines along the borderline. Photo: EPA/ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS.

During the Kosovo war, many local residents in the border villages of Kukes, Has and Tropoja strongly supported the Kosovo Liberation Army, and many houses were turned into shelters or headquarters for KLA fighters who were battling Milosevic’s troops and police forces.

Kukes was also the area in which the KLA allegedly held prisoners in improvised jails, which are now the focus of war crimes indictments at the Kosovo Special Chambers in The Hague.

Meanwhile the Albanian residents of these villages continue to suffer the consequences of the war in 1999.

In the little village of Dobrune in the Has municipality, just across the border from Gjakova/Djakovica in Kosovo, 22 boys and girls have been crippled by landmines, and three others have lost their lives.

During the war, Sose Mulaj allowed dozens of KLA fighters from across the border in Kosovo to stay at her house. Since the war, she has been taking care of her crippled son, Korab, who lost his hands and suffered eye injuries as a result of a mine explosion near the village.

With tears in her eyes, Mulaj recalled how Korab was maimed by a blast in June 2000 while grazing cattle. At that time, he was only 18 years old and was preparing for his final school exams, but the incident destroyed his future.

Mulaj said that Korab was rescued by some Kosovo Albanians who were gathering wood in the forest and was initially taken to the hospital in Gjakova/Djakovica. He was then transported by NATO’s Kosovo force in a helicopter to a hospital in Pristina, where he underwent medical treatment for six months.

Now Korab is 39 years old, the father of two children, and lives on disability benefits of 18,000 lek (146 euros) a month. His mother is disappointed by what she sees as the lack of justice for war crimes committed by Milosevic’s forces.

“The international community and UN court in The Hague are not judging fairly. I told my husband to take our crippled son, together with the 22 other boys and other children of Dobruna and go to The Hague and protest in front of the court and say: ‘Do you see how the Serbs treated our children?’” she said.

Kadri Mula, now 58, was serving as a soldier in the Albanian Army when he stepped on a mine while patrolling the border. His task was to stop and warn refugees from the Kosovo war not to cross over into a mined area, but on June 18, 1999, he himself was injured.

“While monitoring the border line, I stepped on a mine and was injured in both legs. I was sent to [the nearby town of] Krume, where I received first aid in the town mosque, where a field hospital had been installed for the KLA,” recalled Mula.

He was transported by helicopter to the capital Tirana and was in a coma for 48 hours, but survived. However, the blast caused him other health problems, and today he suffers from diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease.

“I get a pension of 17,000 lek [138 euros] and half of it goes on my medicines,” Mula told BIRN.

In the Has area, the Kosovo authorities have granted some residents the status of KLA veteran or war invalid, which makes them eligible for welfare benefits, in recognition for their assistance to the guerrilla group’s armed struggle.

But Zoje Hoti, the wife of now-deceased Hysni Hoti, who was wounded by Serbian snipers and seriously injured by mines, said she travelled to Pristina to inquire about whether her husband was eligible for war invalid status, but was asked to pay a bribe.

“I was never awarded anything [by the Kosovo authorities], although as a family whose house is on the border, we contributed during the war,” Hoti said.

‘Disabled people buy their own prostheses’

Specialist Fadil Shehu at the hospital prosthetics unit in Kukes. Photo: Bashkim Shala.

Survivors of landmine explosions have no special status in Albanian law that would grant them any more benefits than other are disabled people.

Izet Ademi from the village of Bardhoc in Kukes, who lost a leg in the spring of 1999 and is now a member of an association that campaigns for the rights of landmine and gunshot wound survivors, told BIRN that the benefit payments they are getting are inadequate.

“Most of the mine survivors in the village are in great difficulty. Before, mine victims and disabled people 9,000 to 11,000 lek [73 to 89 euros a month] from the municipality’s social welfare fund, but this fund no longer exists,” said Ademi.

In 2005, a prosthetics unit was set up near Kukes Regional Hospital, to help disabled people in the area, funded by donations from international organisations.

But the only specialist on the unit, Fadil Shehu, told BIRN that since 2015, the unit has been suffering from a lack of funds.

This year, the unit was allocated a budget of three million lek (24,290 euros), which Shehu said was “symbolic” compared to the prices of quality prostheses.

“One prosthesis alone costs about 1,000 euros. The disabled people buy good-quality items themselves, if they can afford them, as a good-quality carbon foot costs 1,000 euros,” he said.

The other problem is a lack of specialist companies in Albania selling materials for the repair of prostheses, which means that if disabled people send them to be fixed, they can be left struggling to move around without their prosthesis for long periods.

In the village of Dobrune, Kadri Mula has been waiting for his to be returned to him for months.

“I sent the prosthesis to be repaired in Kukes, but it is still there, because there is no material to repair it,” he said.