Doctors who served in the parallel healthcare system in Kosovo during the 1990s recount the extraordinary challenges they faced when building the medical system, treating thousands under fire, and risking their lives to reach the wounded.
At BIRN’s Reporting House Museum in Prishtina, healthcare professionals who worked before and during the Kosovo 1998-99 war gathered for a panel titled “Medicine in ‘Impossible’ Circumstances: Challenges, Experiences, and Sacrifices.” The discussion shed light on the realities faced by ethnic Albanian doctors who worked under political repression, in improvised wartime conditions, and under constant personal threat.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Serbian authorities expelled thousands of ethnic Albanian healthcare workers from public institutions, forcing them to create a parallel network of clinics, humanitarian centres, and improvised hospitals—a system held together by volunteerism, private donations, and personal risk.
Many physicians with private practices donated medicine and equipment to keep the system alive.
A parallel health system under pressure
Kosovo doctors recall the challenges of the parallel medical system during the 1990s at a discussion panel at the Reporting House museum on December 5, 2025. Photo: BIRN
As the fighting escalated, Albanian doctors established mobile teams and field hospitals across regions affected by the fighting. Despite constant surveillance and shortages of basic supplies, they continued treating civilians and wounded fighters.
Orthopedic traumatologist Cen Bytyqi recalled the intensity of those years: “There was a feeling of mobilisation. Each of us faced life-or-death circumstances. We worked on all fronts—treating civilians in Mother Teresa humanitarian centres and also serving directly in zones of active fighting. Because that way of living was no longer a life.”
He highlighted the central role of the Mother Teresa Humanitarian Medical Service, led by Gani Demolli: “We treated large numbers of patients-surgical, orthopedic, gynecological cases. When fighting intensified, many patients were sheltered in homes around Prishtina, and our teams continued to visit them.”
Even routine medical visits became life-threatening: “We have even witnessed colleagues dying before our eyes, because there were attacks on the road.”
The service eventually secured support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. “This allowed us access to supply depots and even enabled us to deliver materials to the frontline.”
Makeshift hospitals
Inside the Mother Teresa Humanitarian Centre in Prishtina. Photo: BIRN
Surgeon Sali Krasniqi recalled the creation of makeshift hospitals in 1998 as the fighting spread: “With the intensification of the war, the need for these hospitals arose. They later expanded into the border areas of Albania, such as Kruma and Bajram Curri. The danger was during the travel to these areas.”
Teams of surgeons, orthopedists, and specialists from Prishtina rotated through these zones.
“Around 400 doctors served in these wartime hospitals, perhaps even more. For us, the biggest danger was traveling from home to these hospitals. Even finding and transporting patients during fighting was a major challenge.”
Krasniqi worked at the University Clinical Center of Kosovo until March 1999, when bombing began and Albanian staff were expelled: “From May 1998 to June 1999, surgery and orthopedics treated around 10,400 patients—over 6,000 of them Albanians. Many were beaten, tied to radiators, and burned with cigarettes. Some begged to jump from the windows to end the torture. It was crucial that some Albanian staff stayed during the war, because we often had to send our own people there.”
Stories that haunt
A house turned into the Mother Teresa Humanitarian Centre in Prishtina. Photo: BIRN
Surgeon Xheladin Recica helped organise doctors, nurses, and field hospitals within the parallel medical network. Newly graduated doctors—whose degrees Serbia refused to recognise—were sent to school clinics, village ambulances, and Mother Teresa humanitarian service centres.
Surgeon Xheladin Recica helped organise these field hospitals and clinic networks staffed by ethnic Albanians. The military hospital in Nerodime operated until the end of the war.
One memory still haunts him: “A medical technician in Ferizaj region told me they had buried a pregnant woman executed in her ninth month.” He said, “When I placed her in the grave, it felt like the baby moved. Please tell me something—I fear we buried the child alive.’’
Recica explained that the woman had been injured for hours before burial: “Under those conditions, there was no chance the baby survived. When I told him this, he seemed slightly relieved.”
He also shared testimonies about mistreatment in Serbian hospitals: “A prisoner wounded in the leg told me the doctors in Nis pulled out his IV by force, together with the skin. Another prisoner said the doctor told a guard, ‘Beat him more, he can endure it.’ I don’t know if he ever took the Hippocratic oath.”
Pediatrician Feride Deliu described the collapse of specialised care: “During the war, a doctor is simply a doctor. Children were the most vulnerable—poor nutrition, overcrowding, poor hygiene—and a huge number of sick children needed help. We worked with a reduced staff and very limited medication.”
She travelled daily from Skenderaj to Likovc and Rezallë villages: “I was stopped at Serbian checkpoints, where they insulted me and mistreated me. I left in the morning without knowing if I would return.”
One case stayed with her: “A child injured by shelling had remained untreated for days. We carried him through the mountains to a clinic and I remember the smell. We had to leave the door of the car open during the road, his leg had to be amputated. Today he lives abroad.”
General and abdominal surgeon Skender Murati emphasised that wartime medical organisations were not optional—they were lifelines.
“It was necessary that during the war these organisations be created, like the Mother Teresa service and the Red Cross, in order to help the civilian population, because the regime at that time excluded Albanian cadres from the hospitals, and they wanted to be involved somewhere in order to help.”
But the risk remained constant he said, adding that, “Serbian intelligence likely monitored these organisations. Injured [Kosovo Liberation Army] KLA fighters treated there were extremely vulnerable. In the Llapi and Prishtina regions, around 70% of the wounded we treated were civilians—over 700 people in total. Some of our drivers and medical teams were later arrested and tortured.”