Tragedy of Romany Refugees at the Adriatic

Instead of Italy - Death in the Waves of the Sea

It seems that more than a hundred of Romanies had to drown for the carefully kept secret - a profitable mob-style business of smuggling people from Montenegrin to the Italian coast - to begin bursting at the seams. It is a business that brings millions of German marks

AIM Podgorica, 27 August, 1999

The recent attempt of about one hundred Romanies from Kosovo and Serbia to reach Italy via Montenegrin coast and a more promising life they dreamt of ended as a tragedy. The crumbling wooden boat just as it had pushed off to the open sea from a still unidentified place ended up at the bottom of the sea pulling down along with it the unfortunate people. It is assumed that the incident happened during the night of 16 August in the region of Grbalj between Tivat and Budva. The waves have so far brought to the surface only several ten bodies and specialised units of Montenegrin police are still persistently searching for the remaining corpses.

The news published at least a week after the tragedy had happened, full of understatements and imprecision, exploded in Montenegro as a bomb, revealing scandalous proportions of a dirty mob-style business in which millions of German marks are circling. It was preceded by the news about dramatic saving of 69 Romanies on 20 August from a sinking boat which happened by pure coincidence to be on the same itinerary as the Laburnum, the ship which sails betweeb Bar and Bari.

The trade with human misfortune that the Balkan has been full of in the past decade and the enormous wish for better life is already deeply rooted in Montenegro. Montenegrin coast has become the route of illegal journeys to the other coast of the Adriatic, almost like the Albanian, during escalation of the crisis of Kosovo in the beginning of last year. That is when the Albanian refugees from Kosovo started to arrive in big numbers. The destination most of them dreamt of was Ulcinj - the town farthest to the south on Montenegrin coast. Various humanitarian organisations made improvised tent settlements for the newly arrived at the famous, kilometre-long beach in Ulcinj. Its hinterland has become an ideal place for campaigning, reception of those who were arriving from the northern Montenegrin municipalities and for the purchase of places in one of the dilapidated small ships and boats of local fishermen. The journey cost between two and two and a half thousand German marks per person. For children - the fare was amounted to half the price.

However, nobody knows for sure how many Albanians have gone to Italy in this way in the past year and a half, in fact until the end of the war in Kosovo in the beginning of June. Those well informed claim that the whole business was run by about forty persons of both Montenegrin and Albanian origin, a firmlyclosed group of the "privileged". The profit from a single journey reached as high as 400 thousand German marks. A boat or a fishing trawler crowded with the Albanians was accompanied to the international waters where some of the more skilled passengers were instructed how to navigate and the organisers of the journey returned to land by a rubber boat or a skimmer which had followed the trawler.

That is how in the beginning of the war in Kosovo Montenegro became one of the corridors through which the "clandestine" passengers from Kosovo departed to Italy. At first they were the Albanians who after the war started going back home, and then came the Romanies.

The latter have started to arrive in Montenegro since mid June because they feared Albanian retaliation for their unconcealed cooperativeness with the Serbs. They refused to go to places with majority Albanian population, such as Ulcinj. That is why the "ports" from which they departed moved to the north. Indeed, from Bar to Boka, every secluded spot is convenient for putting out to sea. Italian press claims that due to bad financial situation of the Romanies, the price of crossing the Adriatic went down. The price of 500 German marks per person is mentioned. But the total profit for the organisers remained enormous. Perhaps other information should be trusted that the price was formed in Podgorica as the starting point from where those interested were first transferred to the coast. It also allegedly reached - two to two and a half thousand marks.

In the business with the Romanies, the Albanians seem to have been excluded from the division of the enormous profit. They were replaced by a few Romanies, and according to allegations of Italian media, certain Romanians. In the past few months the police in Bari has arrested a few ten of Romanians who are suspected of having organised these journeys. The identity of persons arrested by Montenegrin police after the ship had sunk and the large number of people had died still has not become public.

The total number of Romanies who have gone to Italy in the past two months in this way is not known either. It is assumed that there are about five thousand of them. For five thousand illegal passengers, the profit of the anonymous members of the underground can only be assumed but it could be no less than five million marks! Public speculations that Romanies, former smugglers of Italian blue jeans and shoes have become influential members of these groups is hardly possible. Such highly profitable underground deals are ruled by a clear and strict hierarchy, often on racial and ethnic grounds. On the other hand, only natives can establish close connections with the police on the local and maybe even higher level, which is imperative for "business" deals of such proportions and such profitability.

In any case, the number of Romanies who have come to Montenegro has already become constant - about eight thousand of those who have arrived from Kosovo and whose main residence is the refugee camp in one of the suburbs of Podgorica. They have joined about twenty thousand of Romanies in Montenegro who are "natives" here.

But there is no doubt that among those who have already arrived on the other coast of the Adriatic there are plenty of Romanies from Serbia as well. Moreover, according to what Montenegrin media report there is founded suspicion that the chain of organisers reaches certain cities in Serbia. Sometimes a Montenegrin or a Muslim, mostly from the north of Montenegro in search of a job or fleeing from military service, joined the illegal passengers.

The phenomenon reached scandalous proportions. Such that in the beginning of August, on the fifth to be precise, a delegation of Italian ministry of internal affairs visited Montenegro in order to reach an agreement with Montenegrin colleagues on a joint strategy of the struggle against this type of crime which has started to create great problems to the western neighbour. For Italian public and its authorities it is insignificant where these people come from and what they are running away from, but where they set out on their journey from is, and this is Montenegro. A new visit of Italian delegation has been announced, with the same mandate. Recently Italian ambassador in Belgrade visited Montenegrin minister of internal affairs, Vukasin Maras.

From the curt official statements issued after these meetings it is difficult to make out what the Montenegrin party was expected to do. It is obvious that even after them, the transfer continued unhindered. For as long as it did not take its toll in human lives and for as long as an international scandal did not breat out.

Gordana BOROVIC

(AIM)