Written by Nafi Çegrani. Translated by Petrit Latifi.

In 1912-13, Serbo-Bulgarian troops committed various atrocities against the Albanians of Çegran, Fushëgropa e Pologut and Përbregu.

” […] For the crimes of the Serbo-Montenegrin or Chetnik-Bulgarian army during the occupation of the Albanian lands in 1912 and 1913, they burned the houses and huts of poor and defenseless villagers, such as the inhabitants of Çegran with approximately 160 houses in those years and approximately 1800 inhabitants. The entire village was reduced to ashes, the innocent and unarmed population was massacred en masse, and there are still no accurate statistics on the number of those killed and disappeared.

Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars The crimes of the Serbian army and paramilitary units against the Albanian population have been reported by the European press (French, Austrian, Italian, German, English, Danish, Romanian, Russian and American, etc.), which in most cases speak of the mass executions of the Albanian rural population, such as what happened in Çegran or other areas such as Dibër and Kicevo, Tetovo and Skopje.

There was also systematic and systematic burnings of villages, numerous robberies of houses, the slaughter of family members, or by tying up young boys from Çegran, the Chetnik paramilitaries of Risto of Turçani slaughtered them like in a slaughterhouse, which is what history has gone down in… There have also been countless rapes of women and girls and atrocities against the civilian population in many Albanian villages of Fushëgropa of Pologu.

Many years ago when I was still a young journalist, Uncle Bajrami of Xhelës recounted the tragedy and massacre of the Chetnik paramilitary Risto from Turçan, because only Uncle Bajrami had survived, as I have explained in this article and pages of my book entitled “ÇEGRANI DHE TRUNGU I FISEVE”.

After the departure of the Turkish army, the Serbian forces took back their previous positions. Those who suffered the most were the inhabitants of the village of Çegran. According to studies and writings by Prof. Vebi Xhemaili and Ismet Jonuz Krosi: The Serbian army surrounded the village and arrested all the men, terrorizing women and children.

All the men they took from their homes, unarmed, civilians, the Serbs slaughtered them like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Çegran at that time had 160 houses and, taking into account the structure of the families at that time, it is thought that the village had about 1,800 inhabitants. Like many villages on this side of the Polog Valley. Risto’s Chetniks and paramilitaries carried out the siege by surprise and in an organized manner.

The first victims were recorded in the neighborhoods of Loke, Lushe, Muje, Ballise, Like, Kome, Hane, Vishe, Silishte, Pire, etc., etc. On this occasion, four young boys and two old men from the village of Forinë were also killed.”

Përbregu massacre

“And if we read the literary prose “Elez Alia i Lumës” while there were no shortage of rhapsodies or poems about that event by various authors, the fate and tragedy of the Albanians of those picturesque areas is quite understandable. Also, in recent days, Dr. Prof. Shefqet Hoxha has published his book entitled “Serbian barbarities in Lumë and the surrounding area 1912-1913”, where he sheds light on that period in a scientific manner, including the Përbregu massacre.

During the communist regime, the genocide on the River, as well as the war of 1912, were covered by the slime of the fatal friendship that the communist governments of the time of Tito and Enver built during the ruined Cominternist years that were connected between Belgrade and Tirana respectively, and all of it to the detriment of the Albanian nation, which I will explain in the sequel:

“In the September Uprising, which also extended to Polog, to remove Serbian rule from these parts, and to take Skopje, the inhabitants of the village of Çegran also actively participated. The inhabitants of this village were taken and sent to the school of the village of Çajle. From there, under the pretext that they would take them to Gostivar, they killed them along the way and threw their bodies into the Vardar River.”

Atrocities by Serbian Chetnik paramilitary Risto Turcani

“These crimes were committed on the orders of the well-known Chetnik of this area and commander of the Chetnik-Serbian detachment, Riste Turcani, with the help of the deputy secretary of the Gostivar prefecture, Llaze. According to existing data and documents, the number of those killed is over 47, but it is thought that their number is much higher, the documentation is missing, – says Prof. Krosi.

Large groups were forcibly gathered from the village of Çegran, especially young people, who were tied with belts and barbed wire, and sent to the ruins of the villages of Çajlë e Vjetër and Balindoll, killing and stabbing them with machetes (on the plateaus of the Balindoll meadows where the bridge of this village is located today).

As far as the elders of the time can remember, the following were killed there: Rakip Liman Peçi, Bilal Fazliu, Jusuf Murati, Akik Asani, Çerkez Ferati, Mehmet Aliti, Bajram Iljazi, Çela Durmishi, Elmaz Fetahi, Azis Bakiu, Jusuf Shasivari, Milaim Shaqiri, Fejzulla Neziri, Veli Merseli, Ramadan Fetahu, Azir Qorri i Çelebiut, Rasim Aziri, Ajet Sulejmani, Bajrami i Xhelës.

Only the old man emerged alive from this terrible massacre who recounts years and decades later: Bajrami i Xhelës, whom the Serbo-Slavic-Bulgarian Chetniks not only spared, but the knives stuck in his body, developed from a healthy peasant, failed to take his life! He, stabbed with 12 knives, floats along the Vardar, and somewhere caught by the roots of willows and willows in near the village of Forinë, he manages to get to the riverbank to escape.

And, he remains alive to tell others and the younger generations of his time about those killed by Çegran by the Chetnik Ristja of Turçani, and to open the eyes of the world to see better who they were and who the real barbarians and criminals are on these Balkan paths…).

Then there were those killed and whose graves are still unknown today: Osman Ajdari, Selman Limani, Yzair Selimi, Refet Selimi, Azir Ramadani, Ysen Sali, Kasëm Aliti, Sadik Muharremi of the Balliseve, Rahman Zendeli, Idriz Latifi, Beqir Ismani, Shuaip Zeqiri, Hasan Azizi and many, many others whose names are not remembered, but who wrote history.

This, in fact, is worth remembering by the new generations and learning lessons from the historical past which remains for us Albanians as a sea with many storms and tempests, as a quagmire of chaos and sadness.”

References

https://pashtriku.org/nafi-cegrani-krimet-serbosllavo-cetnike-ndaj-cegranasve-me-1913/