To be a mother and father for over two decades, stories of mothers who raised children alone

That was during the war in 1999, on the day Serbian forces forcibly took her husband, Myrtezain, who was then 25 years old.

It's taken before our eyes. She had the girl in her hand and she was told to let the girl go. They've taken it without any other reason”, Eddie tells Radio Free Europe.

From that day on, nothing has been known to Myrtzai's fate.

Eddy Dylhas and her daughter Genta, who was two years old when her father disappeared, were forced to start a new life, one.

“We were just starting to have a family... And then I had to live my whole life alone to raise my daughter. The world seems to have fallen on my head”, she says.

I've put myself aside to school my daughter”

During these years, it says that as a family, they have grown tired in all aspects, and especially waiting has weighed Eddie down psychologically.

Eddy faced difficult conditions, and for a decade he lived through the aid of several associations. Her purpose was only Genta's schooling.

Ten years I was out of work, only with help. I saved my daughter's care. After some time I've been employed, I've put myself aside to school my daughter”, says Eddie.

She says that life as a family head saw a marriage mate next door is very challenging.

"Life is just so hard, always looking at the eyes of others." I have no words to describe how difficult it is. Every problem you have to deal with yourself. Now I had my daughter on an operation, and all you have to do is run”, she points out.

Why didn't Dad call me on my birthday?

With similar difficulties has been faced by Tjivana Marinkovic from Gracanica, the Serb majority municipality located near Pristina.

She was 27 years old when her husband Gorani was abducted somewhere on the Pristina-Gylan highway in 1999. Thurwana was left alone with the two daughters of Dragana, who was three years old and seven - month - old Tamar.

Thurwana says she has always hoped that Goran would return, while in all ways she has tried to make her daughters both mother and father. The girls were told that Dad was in the West working.

The children were small and the questions were very difficult. The hardest part was finding the right answers to those questions: Where's Dad, when he's coming, why Dad didn't call me on my birthday, and then they started crying, saying that everyone came for his birthday just didn't remember to call us back.

Thurwana says she doesn't remember the moment her daughters realized that their father might never come home.

They figured out for themselves because I heard on TV everything that had to do with the missing. They came with me to the gatherings of missing persons' associations”.

Thurwana also dedicated her own life to her daughters' schooling, but she says that this journey was not easy.

I was missing that moral support when I made big decisions related to child education”, the provana shows, adding that deep down she believes that her husband Goran is alive.

When we talk about it, we always say: When it comes or when it comes back, says Thurwana and points out that she will never give up the search for her husband.

“I raised the boy with suffering”

Erblin Ujkan knows his father, Nexat, only through a photograph located on his home wall in Vinarch, Mitrovica municipality.

Wolfani Light has lived with her husband, Nexhatin only five years.

Nexhati, 31, was killed on May 3rd 1999, along with Light Brother Vehbi Hamza, 23, as they fled from Serbian forces. Their lifeless bodies were found four years later and redependent in their homeland.

Erblin, the son of light, was only three years old when his father was killed.

The light, which is now 53-year-old, says it has suffered much and continues to suffer in the absence of her husband.

My husband left me a boy. I raised my son with suffering. One time I lived in a pavilion, then an association built us a house. The difficult conditions, with 62 euros I've lived and later, have done 170<18x1>, the Light tells Radio Free Europe.

She says that his life was for him and continues to be difficult in his absence. According to her, being a family head and without a husband in Kosovo is not easy.

“All things should be provided for families, even trees (for warming during winter). The boy has grown up, but he too is unemployed. He's been in school for three years, and he hasn't been in college since he's been in school.

It's hard, except the one who tries how hard it is. And raising children, and keeping a home, preparing for the boy, wearing all of it, says Light.

1,630 found

Kosovo continues to seek 1,630 missing persons during the war in 1998/99, mainly Albanians. A year ago, this number was 1,643.

On International Day of Missing Persons, missing persons associations have called for this humanitarian issue to be depoliticised.

The issue of the dead has been part of the dialogue for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia in Brussels.

In September 2020, Kosovo delegation officials had declared an agreement for the unemployed has been reached with Serbia. But they had not clarified the details of the agreement.

Government officials from the past, former Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, had stressed that the provisions of the Agreement for theless will be implemented only if comprehensive and judicial binding agreements with Serbia are reached.

Kosovo's current prime minister, Albin Kurti, has said the war-time issue of the undiscovered is an open wound and that “is very important to open Serbia's state archives”.