Kosovo Survivors Relive Tisa Tragedy

Blerim Rama last saw his wife alive in the Tisa River. Rama and Elvira Jaha were fighting for their lives in unforgiving waters between Serbia and Hungary. 

Amid wind and rain in the dead of night, Rama clutched their daughter, Erida, as Jaha held their son, Rendi. Then the 29-year-old father made a fateful decision.

“I told my wife to go on — I will take the kids,” Rama testified last week in a Pristina courtroom.Rama took a child in each hand and kicked to the safety of the shore.

They reached the riverbank on the Serbian side, near Subotica, but their ordeal was far from over.

There also was no sign of Elvira or the boat that capsized as it ferried the family and other Kosovo Albanians towards Hungary and the European Union.

Eighteen were aboard. After failing to light a fire to warm his cold, wet children, Rama decided to find help. 

He sheltered his kids in a field, covered them with grass and left. A light drew Rama to a nearby home. He approached, asking for help.

A man there responded by setting his dogs loose. Rama managed to escape and eventually located a phone to call police. 

It had been two hours since the accident, Rama said. He and police found the children safe in the field. But it was as if Elvira and the other passengers had just vanished. 

The bodies of most, including Elvira, would be found in the days and weeks that followed. Some have never been recovered, presumed lost to the Tisa. Only Rama and his children survived.

From tragedy to trial

Almost a year and a half later, Rama re-lived the horror of that autumn night when he testified in Pristina District Court on Feb. 2.

Prosecutors allege that those tragic events in October 2009 exposed an international organised-crime ring that offered migrants illegal passage from the poverty and isolation of Kosovo to the economic opportunity of the European Union for about 3,000 euros per person or up to 8,000 euros for an entire family. 

Eight men now are on trial in a case being overseen by judge from the European Union’s law and justice mission to Kosovo, EULEX. 

Avni Hajdari, Shpejtim Ademaj, Blerim Ademaj, Fatmir Pajaziti, Xhemajl Halilaj, Shaip Selmani, Ismail Krapi and Rabit Ajvazi each pleaded not guilty to organised crime and human-trafficking charges.

In court, they’re dispersed among three rows of benches. They quietly chatted and joked as armed guards guarded the defendants during the proceedings, perhaps more for their protection than the publics.

A question of organisation

Much of the evidence has yet to be presented. But the central question of the trial is whether these Kosovar Albanians were just a rag-tag group with little interconnection in a disorganised immigration scheme, or if they were taking part in a sophisticated criminal enterprise that was in the business of trafficking people for large sums of money. 

Special prosecutor Besim Kelmendi described an operation that was carefully linked from the ground up, with wire transfers of thousands of euros and Swiss francs involving Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland and Hungary. 

Intercepted phone calls also back up the case, the prosecutor said.Outside the courtroom, Haxhi Millaku, the attorney representing Shpejtim Ademaj, characterised the case against these eight defendants as being tiles in a mosaic. 

“This is not organised — this is disorganised crime,” Millaku said, adding that the “big fish” has yet to be caught. 

Millaku was referring to Anton Gecaj, a suspect in the case who remains at large.

Shpejtim Ademaj and his brother, Blerim Ademaj, are accused of working in concert in Kosovo and Switzerland, respectively, to facilitate Ilir Agushi’s departure from Zhegra. 

Agushi wanted to join his brother, Shkëlzen, who lives in Geneva.Agushi died in the Tisa. Millaku says the brothers are cooperating with prosecutors.

‘Ismajli’

The testimony of Blerim Rama supports the idea of coordinated effort. Rama had decided sometime in 2009 that he wanted to get his family out of Kosovo for economic reasons and head to Germany. 

Via bar chatter, Rama heard that there was man known as “Ismajli” who was smuggling people from Kosovo to other parts of Europe.

They met a few times, eventually agreeing to 6,300 euro for Rama, his wife and two children. 600 euro was paid in advance, with the remaining 5,700 euro due upon their safe arrival in Austria.

Rama also insisted in his testimony that their deal excluded the crossing of any bodies of water.The family met “Ismajli” and another man in front of the Maxi supermarket in Pristina’s Emshir neighborhood about 7 am on October 14, 2009. 

They got into a Volkswagen Passat and headed for Gjilan. The family had to change cars and drivers five times between Prishtina and their ill-fated boat crossing near Subotica, Serbia. At one point the smugglers put Rama and his family in different vehicles. 

In court, Rama identified one of the defendants, Avni Hajdari, as “Ismajli.”Testimony in the Tisa River case is scheduled into late February.