Ex-secutor NATO Meets With Kosovo Injured 20 Years After War in Kosovo

Brian Honeybourn, former NATO-based investigative official who had served during the last war in Kosovo, would probably not believe he would speak to the girl named Vlora Shaban, whose case he had investigated 20 years earlier in Kosovo. He had met with the girl since wartime during investigations into an armed attack on Albanian civilians by Serb forces.
Vlora, along with many other family members, was the victim of a terrible attack during the war in Kosovo. The investigator explains how Serbian forces had listed Vlora and her family at their home in Lasice, Gjilan, and shot one by one. When the weapon was directed to Vlora, the bullet had hit her in her hand and cheek and left her face, causing her only one injury on her finger and a minor wound on her cheek.

God was there, of course. Some people have a hard time believing this story but I have pictures of this girl”, says Honeybourn. After being shot at by his family, the army had set the house on fire, and Vlora's two - year - old brother had been burned alive. Twenty years later, the investigator was informed that Vlora is alive and well, has established a family and that he has been treated with finger plague and face shortly after the attack.

That's great. I'm very, very pleased”, says Honeybourn about the happy news. The news was given to Milaim Grabovci, a man who lived ten miles [16 km] from Lashtica, where the massacre had occurred. In 1999, Grabovci had met Vlora after it was announced of the massacre that took place near his hometown. After a while, he had moved from Kosovo to Macedonia as refugees after Serbian forces had begun looking for him. While staying in a refugee camp, Milaim Grabovci had met a journalist with the newspaper “Washington Post”, who had published a letter about Vlora.

After she had appeared on the front page of the newspaper, an American named Bill Brill appeared to help her. He had travelled to Kosovo to meet Vlora shortly after the armed attack. He had paid her ticket to travel to the U.S. and to undergo a face and finger operation. He later set up a fund by which Vlora was built. Milaim says Bill was a very charitable man. He helped many people. Vlora was not the only person he helped. There were other children from Kosovo who were helped by him and brought to the US for medical treatment”, he says.

Having seen the murder of members of his family, Vlora had also heard his brother cry while he was burning alive in the burnt house. As a result, Vlora had many nighttime anxieties. Despite many of the horrors experienced, she continued her life in the village with her uncle, brother, and grandmother. After the war, Vlora completed her schooling and is now married and has three children.

Many years later, Detective Honeybourn has also returned to Vlora's childhood. During the investigation into the burned house, he had found an old key. I didn't know whose key that was, so I got it to Canada. However, it now belongs to Vlora and her family”, he says. After he got in touch with Vlora via email, he mailed the stuff he had taken to her house.

She was moved and happy that she had something that links her home and her family”, says Grabovci. He says the investigation into the case had continued until 2010, despite some witnesses who had claimed to know a suspect. For unknown reasons, the suspect had never been arrested, writes “Langley Times”, broadcast Express.