Kosovan family in hiding as State seeks to carry out deportation order

TWO young sisters and their widowed mother were in hiding last night as immigration officials prepared lay in wait to deport them.

Four-year-old Eda Sylaj, her five-year-old sister Eni, and their mother, Florinda, are desperate to escape being returned to Kosovo where a nightmare existence awaits them.

Florinda was too frightened to speak publicly after narrowly missing garda immigration officers who came to arrest her.

But the girls’ teachers and Florinda’s cousin, who has refugee status here and with whom Florinda and the children have been living, begged the State to reconsider their decision to turn the family away.

“It is like a bomb on my house. It is better to kill someone than to do this”, said a distraught Diana Nrejaj who herself fled Kosovo in 1999 and has settled here with her five-year-old son.

Florinda lost her husband in the war in 1999 and fled in 2000 after receiving death threats from family and in-laws who had vowed revenge after opposing her marriage.

She has nowhere to go if she is returned to her native Djakovica. Atrocities committed there feature in the indictment against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic who is on trial for war crimes.

In Kosovo yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which Ireland is a founding member, said a woman in Florinda’s situation faced grave difficulties.

“There is great unemployment. People are not able to keep their families, especially if you are a women,” said Emine Pajazipi.

“Women without family support are not directly at risk but by leaving her aside she gets very bad treatment. There is social assistance but it’s very little.

“If her house was damaged she would get help to rebuild but if she has no home, there is no support.”

Ruth Leslie, a teacher at Castleknock Educate Together National School in Dublin where the children are pupils, said staff were shocked at the deportation move.

“The girls are making excellent progress and Florinda is dedicated to them. We can’t believe they are going to be sent back to absolutely nothing.”

The staff are praying a last minute plea which they made to the minister for justice yesterday might save the family. Their hopes rose slightly last night when they heard the minister was considering their letter.