Diturije who miraculously survived the killing

By Julius Strauss in Globare, central Kosovo

5 October 1998

Lying in a crib decorated with flowers and sleeping gently in the late morning, there is little to mark six week old Diturije Deliu apart from any other baby her age. But her short life was destroyed last weekend in a barbarous frenzy that left her mother and both her siblings slaughtered.

When the Serbian forces began their attack near their village 10 days ago, the Deliu family knew that it may get nasty. Rumours had been circulating among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians all summer that the Serbian forces were committing atrocities.

Ymer, 38, who lived in the small village of Obrinje with his four-year-old daughter Menduhije, 10-year-old son Jeton, his wife Lumnije, 30, and newly-born Diturije sent his family to the woods to build a shelter. They were joined by more than a dozen other relatives.

The menfolk of the village also fled but to a different area, reasoning that their families would be more likely to be spared if there were no men of fighting age with them.

Last Monday morning Ymer learned his mistake. After days of hiding in the woods he ventured down at dawn to where his family was staying in a makeshift tent. Only Diturije was still alive, lying in the bloodstained arms of his dead wife.

The scene that met Ymer was so gruesome that newspapers and television teams that visited the site couldn't use some of the images.

Ymer's 10-year-old son Jeton had his throat cut open from mouth to ear. His pregnant sister-in-law, Luljeta, 28, had been murdered with a blunt instrument and had her swollen abdomen stabbed. His four-year-old daughter Menduhija, had been stabbed fatally in the back. Her ponytail had been cut off and stuffed in her mouth.

Scattered around the small clearing or lying dead in corners where they had tried to flee lay another 15 members of his extended family. Among them was his wife Lumnije whose neck was slashed. Her back had also been stabbed. It was in her arms that Diturije lay.

Ymer said: "I was sure she was dead just like all the others. Her face was smeared in blood and there was blood in her mouth. But then she opened her eyes and look at me and I realised she was alive. I looked for signs of blood on her romper suit and realised there were none. Then I understood that the blood had been smeared on to her."

Yesterday in an unemotional voice Ymer relived his discovery as he showed the Daily Telegraph where each of his family members had been killed. Chain-smoking but otherwise calm, he said: "I haven't cried, not once. I want to be precise and only say what I know. One day i will say the same thing in the [International War Crimes tribunal in the] Hague."

"The only thing I have done is that I wear my son's watch along with my own. It still has his blood on it and I don't want it to get washed off. I know what time I discovered my son's body. It was 11 minutes to 6 in the morning. I looked at his watch, then."

Ymer's account has been corroborated by international journalists and diplomats who arrived at the scene later. The gory details of the massacre have provoked a new political determination to act against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's forces.

The remains of his family he and friends are buried in a little field near the forest. In place of headstones, he has put the shoes that each family member was wearing at the time of their death. Every day he returns to the site of the massacre despite a constant danger from Serbian forces in the area.

Diturije has survived. That Monday morning when Ymer left the site of his family's massacre he clasped her still bloody body firmly to his chest and, keeping to the woods to avoid Serbian forces, he walked to the nearest village, two hours away.

Now she is being looked after by relatives in Globare about half an hour's drive away along the dust tracks that link together these Kosovan villagers. She sleeps impervious to the sobs of her relatives who are still mounring their lost ones. But she still wants for baby milk formula and nappy creams to stop her rashes and has recieved no medical attention since the ordeal.