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20 years ago today, I was loaded on this train against my will and was made a #Refugee. I had done nothing wrong and broken no laws. I simply belonged to the wrong ethnic group. 1/xx 
Around midday on April 1st 1999 Serbian police from Slobodan Milosevic's regime backed up by what looked like irregular militia came to my apartment building in Pristina, #Kosovo and started shooting in the air. They demanded we come out and ordered us to walk behind a car. 2/xx
From listening to the news,I knew something really bad was about to happen 2 me,but I didn’t exactly know what.The option ranged from being beaten,killed, used as a human shield to protect Serb military bases against #NATO bombing to forcefully being removed from my country.3/xx
We followed behind the police car and it eventually led us to this train station where there were 1000’s of other people waiting. There was no train at the station, so we just waited there until it got dark. A train then came & people started rushing in. I did the same 4/xx
We rushed to get on the train, but the destination was unknown! No one had any idea where they were taking us, but somehow it still felt better and safer inside the train than outside. At least it was warm inside as the train was completely packed. 5/xx
Rumors, fear and panic ran amok. Worse yet, the train made numerous stops like that throughout the night. Every time it stopped we could hear airplanes above and it would trigger panic again. Is this our time? 7/xx
Eventually at some point after midnight the train stopped in what looked like middle of the forest.This time police got out.Are they going to kill us here? Why else would police get out?But after a few minutes of panicking we learned our fate:We were not going to be killed!8/xx
Police simply let us out and pointed in the direction we should walk. It was the no man’s land between Kosovo and Macedonia.Everyone was happy:We made it alive! We are going to #Macedonia!Here is a spinet from a documentary that captures most of this ( not my actual train): 9/xx
Our happiness was short-lived.After a few minutes of walking we started hearing crying children .At first, we thought this was a refugee camp where we would receive help,but we soon realized there was no camp:It was just a muddy open field w 10's of thousands of people 10/xx
The country on the other side of the border, #Macedonia, would not let us in! We were literally stuck in no man’s land in freezing temperatures with limited food and no shelter for 5-6 days. Imagine being soaked and then sleeping on the ground in below zero temperatures. 11/xx
We were not getting any aid from any official organization yet, so Albanian community in Macedonia had organized privately to bring us tractor loads of bread/milk ( THANK YOU!). They would drive through the crowd and you had to try to grab what you could. 12/xx
I was an able-bodied teen,so I got a loaf most times.Not everyone was so lucky. I remember a young mother with 2 small kids coming out empty handed one time. She started crying. I offered my loaf, but she took only half of it.These picture brings back painful memories.12/xx
Eventually US& #NATO pressured the gov. there to let us in & we were setup in a proper refugee camp.After a month there I was offered the option to migrate to the US,which I hesitantly took it as I had no other alternatives. You see,most refugees don’t want to be refugees! 13/xx
After I migrated to the US, I set upon trying to find my family. For months on end I had no idea if they had made it alive. But, after a month of searching I discovered they had also made it alive! in just the nick of time & were hiding in the mountains….14/xx
from where they observed Serb police looting their house and eventually burning it down. But we were the lucky ones. By the time Milosevic's ethnic cleansing project was done he had killed 10,000+ civilians, kicked out of the country close to a million & raped 20K+ women. 15/xx
It all started with dehumanization, hate and bigotry. For a full decade prior to this event the government there engaged in spreading hate and bigotry against minorities, so when it actually came to killing, raping and pillaging it came very easy for them. 16/xx
Every mass murder starts with hate, bigotry and dehumanization. If you allow hate, bigotry and dehumanization, understand you are giving mass murder a chance. You are giving human rights abuses a chance. You are giving human suffering a chance. DON'T. 17/xx
#ConfrontHate and #ConfrontBigotry everywhere you see it. Confront it during the day, confront it during the night, in your your home, in your neighborhood and in public square. Confront it everywhere. Don’t tolerate it and don’t accept it. 18/xx
Thankful to people like @madeleine @HillaryClinton @BillClinton Tony Blair @SenJohnMcCain @GeneralClark and *many others* who saw all this violence, hate and bigotry and lobbied for #NATO's intervention to confront it and eventually STOP it! THANK YOU.
