Parkland - extract from the book "Un-leaded blood" by Paul Polansky

(Picture by Human Rights Watch)

“My youngest child was very sick... always vomiting... took her to have a blood test... more lead than the machine could register... didn't want my kid to die like Jenita... her death destroyed her mother's soul... nobody offered to help... nobody offered to take my kid to Belgrade to get treated... when I saw my kid almost dying I got the bus from Mitrovica straight to Belgrade... doctors saw my kid was dying... took her, but wouldn't let me stay with her... I was seven months pregnant... ended up living in a city park, on the streets... when I had to give birth didn't have one dinar to go to hospital... gave birth in the park... several Serbian women gathered round me... one was a midwife... helped me a lot... when my new baby was only three days old, decided I couldn't stay anymore in the park ... didn't have any money to pay for a bus ticket back to the camp... also didn't have much milk to feed my new baby... I wasn't eating enough... only once a day... sent all my kids out to beg, to make money to buy bus tickets back to Mitrovica... was dangerous... every one of my kids was beaten up by the Serbian police... didn't want any Roma begging in Belgrade... stopped spending money on food... didn't eat anything, not even me who had to feed a three-day-old baby... knew then I had made a big mistake bringing all my children with me... finally got enough money to buy the bus tickets... filled up some bottles with water... made our way back to Zvechen... came back to our poor little shack in the camp, but that was better than living on the street... that time I spent in Belgrade was very hard... very bad for every member of my family... every day we were eating just bread from the garbage cans... every night we were hungry and tired from walking around the city all day looking for garbage cans... I'll never forget this, never in my life... never found out if the doctors in Belgrade cured my kid... they'd only let me see her just 10 minutes a day... I'd like to go there again... my new kid, born in the Belgrade park, is now sick from the lead... I'm four months pregnant... I don't want the baby I'm carrying to get it too... I'm the most worried mother in camp... no one cares about us... what should I do?”

Mirsada Nishlija, Zitkovac IDP camp