From conflict to rehabilitation

From conflict to rehabilitation

Ahmet Lugani, from Kosovo, is now free from the nightmares that constantly reminded him of the spring of 1999, when he was tortured by Serb paramilitary forces.

Ahmet Lugani has more grey hair than most 42-year-old men. He has survived a lot more pain too. Despite that, today the Kosovar-Albanian mechanic is quite confident in himself. Looking you right in the eye, he talks about the horror he went through during the 36 days that he spent as a Serb prisoner in 1999.

In the spring of that year killings, rape and torture were part of the ethnic cleansing that came to an end only with NATO and the United Nations intervention.

Ahmet Lugani' life was dramatically changed on a Friday - 30 April 1999 - when he and 174 other people from his village were forced into a truck by Serb paramilitary forces that had entered the village. Six members of his family were massacred - his parents, his two uncles and two cousins.
 
Ahmet Lugani points to his nose, then to different places on his face, as he says:

"Look at my nose. It was broken and I was stabbed with a knife in my forehead."

The torturers kicked him, beat him with rods and cut him with a knife. His right eye was severely damaged during the torture and today he can barely see with it. Even on the day they were released, he and some fellow prisoners were beaten up.

"I was forced to undress, tied with a rope and tortured. When I was subjected to electric shock I fainted. When I woke up I was in a refugee camp in Macedonia."

Later he came in contact with the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims through the Association of Prisoners in Drenas. Thanks to the treatment received at the Centre, Ahmet Lugani feels much better. Occasionally he still suffers pain, but he does not have nightmares any longer. He is also better at dealing with his emotions.

"Sometimes I would find myself crying and two seconds later, I would start laughing. I went to the doctor, because I could see that something was wrong with me. After the torture I was walking sleepless around the house. In nightmares I recalled the beatings and the torture. I still have headaches, but thanks to the treatment with Dr. Enver Cesko I sleep all night and I do not easily get scared as I used to," he says.