Bread for Drenica: When Kosovo Women Marched to Break a Serbian Siege

Naxhije Bucinca remembers the morning of March 16, 1998 as cold and overcast; she wore warm clothes and flat shoes suitable for a long walk.

"Milosevic's regime had intensified the murders, the displacement, and the burning of houses and granaries," said Bucinca, who is now 88 years old. "People in Drenica were left without shelter or bread."

Then a southern province of Serbia, Kosovo was sliding into full scale war as ethnic Albanian guerrillas, from their heartland in the hilly Drenica region, stepped up attacks on Serbian security forces under strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who struck back indiscriminately.

Thousands of civilians had been pushed into the hills and Serbian forces were blocking their supply routes. So Bucinca, an NGO activist, and thousands of other women set off from Pristina to break the siege, marching with loaves of bread in their arms the 40 kilometres to Drenica.

Under the rallying cry of 'Bread for Drenica', the women clutched signs that read 'Stop Genocide' and 'We Are a Nation in Danger'. The column stretched over a kilometre as it left the city.

"The women moved quickly, like hail, breaking through the police lines," recalled Bucinca, who at the time headed an NGO called Group of Creators and Veterans of Education.

"Women are always the ones who have the magje [a wooden box used for storing flour] in front of them," she said. "They are the ones who feel more the weight of food for their children."

Aferdita Saraqini Kelmendi, a journalist at the time, called the march a "critical moment" in gaining the attention of the international community to the plight of the Kosovo Albanians.

Bread as 'universal symbol'

Naxhije Bucinca. Photo: BIRN...