By Halit S. Maliqi. Translatd by Petrit Latifi
After 1878, in the village of Ruboc in Dardana, inhabited by Serbs, several Albanian immigrant families settled, forcibly expelled by the Serbs from their ancestral homes, such as the Vlas, Gajtan, Kopra, Retkocer and Lazani. But here too, the same fate befell them: violence, murders and massacres.
Serbian crimes by Stojan Silkici against Albanians of Ruboc and Busavatë during the Serbian Retreat in 1915
In the autumn of 1915, from Ruboc to Busavatë, the front of war between the retreating Serbian army and the attacking Bulgarian army stood for over three weeks. This difficult situation was exploited by several Serbian gangs to rob, kill and massacre the immigrant families of Ruboc.
A gang of Serbian criminals, led by the voivode of Domaroc, Stojan Silkiqi and several Serbs from Dardana and Rboc, surrounded Albanian families with the aim of robbing, torturing and killing innocent people.
First they surrounded the Vllasa family. On the steps of the house, the criminal Stojan Silkiqi shot and killed Zyka, the mother of Ali Vllasa, after she recognized him and mentioned his name. Then they tied up the men of the house: Ali Vllasa, Rashn Vllasa, Zymer Vllasa and two immigrant guests from Dobronjanci. All of them were stabbed and buried with their clothes in a hole near the meadow stream, about 30-40 meters from the houses.
Atrocities against the Retkovceri and Gajtani families
The other group of criminals surrounded the Retkoceri and Gajtani families, tying up the men: Avdil Gajtani, Zenel Retkoceri and two guests from Koretin, who killed them and buried them in a hole about 20 meters from the house of the current Avdil Gajtani’s sons. From the house of Slih Vllasa they took and tied up the brothers: Shaban Vllasa and Fetih Vllasa. They also slaughtered them and put them in the same hole with the others.
In total, 12 people were slaughtered and massacred, and some claim that there were 16 people. A great crime and massacre against humanity was committed. Their only fault was that they were Albanians and that they had escaped alive when they were expelled from their ancestral homes in 1878!
In early December 1944, Serbian paramilitary forces and local Serbs from Ruboc surrounded the Retkoceri house. At this time, the brothers Zeqa and Metushi resisted with weapons. Trying to break the siege, Zeql Retkoceri was killed near the house, while his brother Metushi was seriously wounded. He was sent alive to Dardana. They say he was massacred and his grave is unknown.
Serbian massacres in 1944
In December 1944, a Serbian partisan brigade surrounded the Llazani neighborhood. They killed Hajro Llazana and Maliq Llazana, who disappeared without a trace.
On the occasion of the Gjilan massacre, on December 23, 1944, Zenel Rashit Vllasa, over 70 years old, and his son Abdulla Vllasa, who had been displaced from Ruboc in Gjilan, were also killed in their yard. Unable to bury them in the city cemetery, they were buried in the yard of their house. The reburial took place later.
The Serbian murders of Albanians in this village have not stopped until our time. In February 2001, the local Serbs organized another massacre. With deceit and flattery, they deceived Raif Ahmet Vllasa, took him to the house of Nesiq Momqillo, whom they massacred at night, and buried the massacred corpse in the Qafa e Dardanës area, with the message: this is what we will do to all Albanians!
There are claims that Raif was chosen because he was the brother of the former socio-political functionary Azem Vllasi, as well as because his son, Naser, was among the most distinguished fighters of the Koshara war on April 9, 1999, who in this war received several wounds from enemy bullets.
P. S. – a clarification:
The well-known Kaçaks: Vesel Kosovica and Ajet Ahmet Bllaca, after killing the well-known voivode Rede Popullani, in 1923, ambushed and killed the great criminal of Domoroc, voivode Stojan Siklic, organizer of the Ruboc massacre. Dul Vllasa and Bajrush Vllasa were sentenced by a communist court in 1945 to 14 years in prison each, on the grounds that in October 1944 they had killed two elderly Serbs from Dardana, participants in the Ruboc massacre in 1915.
Reference
Balkan Academia 