Albania's Silent Empty of Presevo Valley

As nowhere else do Albanians live, a literary clock in Bujanoc continues to be a manifestation of love for the country. Young people recite the poetry of the Rilindians and men line up to talk about the glory of the Albanian people over the centuries.

Once the literary clock is finished, the situation returns to reality. Unpaved and lightless roads, unemployment at 60 percent level, reduced education, and, above all, a youth who is already looking away from her homeland to the west.

The recent statements by Kosovo President Hashim Thaci for a possible set of boundaries between Serbia and Kosovo have turned municipalities with Albanian populations in southern Serbia into the centre of political debate.

But in Bujanoc locals complain that this attention has been missing from Tirana and Pristina over resolving the thorny problems facing the Presevo Valley, including the lack of textbooks in Albanian and the recognition of diplomas of Kosovo and Albanian universities in Serbia.

Albanian Valley leaders say the numerous promises of official Tirana for drafting textbooks for the Valley have not materialised, while regional observers underline that the issue of educational texts for municipalities with Albanian populations in Serbia has been misused by Tirana and Belgrade.

The Valley of Youths

The municipality of Bujanoc, with 43,302 inhabitants and lying on an area of 1249 square miles [1249 sq km] and following the streams of the Vardar and Morawa River, is the center of the Presevo Valley.

This region is also the centre of the Albanian community in Serbia, where the ethnic Albanian population fluctuates from 54.6% in Bujanoc, to 89% in Presevo and 26% in Medvedja, which in total have a population registered of 111,000.

However, according to local officials in recent years, only by Bujanoc have nearly 20,000 inhabitants moved west, the majority of them young. The desire to leave the Valley is also affected by the lack of access to higher education in Serbia.

Laura Halili has completed the third year of high school “Sezai Surroi” in Bujanoc. It wants to study finance, but in Serbian universities it is impossible.

The “will apply in Albania, not only the school is Albanian but it is my dream to study in the mother state,” she said.

The 17-year-old is unclear about her future, but does not rule out the possibility that she might leave her homeland in search of a good future.

Everybody wants to go out and I can't stay here. Why don't you use this opportunity to give me?

Hopeless in Bujanoc are those who have a degree in their pockets.

Janet Avdiu has graduated from nursing high school, while higher education in Pristina has been followed for English Language and Literature. He's been back in the valley for two years and he's out of work.

Janet reports that she has made an application in Germany, taking advantage of her high school education in nursing.

You don't have any work opportunities here. Everyone wants to leave for Germany, especially those studied in nursing and medicine. I'm going to apply and I'm going there,” reacts to the young girl.

If she didn't have a job, Janet says she wouldn't leave Bujanocy, but she says their fates are set by politics.

I just have a job. It's all about politics, if you're familiar with being hired if you don't have a choice here, it explained.

Business High School Director Zeynep Feyzullahu said mass evacuation of people is bringing the city's death.

Bujanoc citizens are leaving, even though it's a great place to cross the 10th corridor. But unfortunately, at the moment there is no perspective,” he said.

“Most have just finished high school leaving for migration, which is bringing death to the town of” -- the school principal,” added Fyzullahu.

Otherwise, the head of the Bujanoc municipality Shaip Kamberi, leaving young people in migration, explains it with the Serb government's poor economic policy.

The Presevo Valley is unknown. We have certain capacities that may fuel the development of the country, such as Nuyanoc toilets, the production of mineral fluids, the tobacco processing plant, but that are state-run and not privatise,” said Kamberi.

“The area's economic capacity is in the hands of the government, not the municipality, and why our commitment is to preserve the young, they stay in the country,” he added.

According to Camber, another impetus for youth migration remains a concern for recognising Albanian university diplomas in Serbia.

“Unresolved degree case does not solve municipalities, but this is an interstate issue,” acquitted Kamberi.

Interstate issues

During her 11 years of schooling, Laura Halili has learned that the Queen of Ilirtos was Teuta and that independence Albania won in 1912, but it has not deepened in history, culture, music or the ethnography of Albanians in the Balkans, because the subject of Albanian history does not exist in the school curriculums in Bujanoc.

When in the school program we had repetitions, the professor told us the story of the Albanians,” remembers Laura.

According to high school principal Zeynep Feyzullahu legally recognized the right in this 30 percent education program of history, figurative culture, musical culture, nature, and ethnic society.

The educational system in the Presevo Valley, a region made up of the municipalities of Bujanoc, Presevo, and Medvedja, is in Albanian, but what students learn about their ethnic background is not two percent of educational curriculum.

We need a hand to write these texts, but unfortunately this aid has not come, neither from Kosovo nor Albania,” said Fejzullahu. / BIRN