Current situation
On February, Albanian police has done several discoveries related to an inquiry about a “blood feud” case begun in 2016. The conflict burst in Elbasan between two clan. It causes 5 casualties and 7 injured. The inquiry results are not public yet, but it seems that one of the first murderers has been identified. The hope is that this news can be the starting point to discover other acts on revenge.
Moreover, at the beginning of February, in Kossovo, an Albanian man invested three people with his car. One of those people died. During the funeral, his family decided to forgive the driver, in order to avoid an escalation of violence. The event represents how traditional habits can still be used to stop the feuds circles.
Sharing, Work and news about Volunteers
Visiting families in conflict everyday gives us an idea of the importance of our work. Not only to mediate conflicts, but also for other reasons. For instance, in case of domestic violence. With the consensus of the wife, we managed to arrange psychological meeting with a psychologist to support her in her daily troubles.
Moreover, our proximity to the people allows us to intervene in cases of difficulties. Like in the case of two families that are facing a hard healthcare situation. During the month of February we accompanied them several times to the hospital. Further more we backed them in the bureaucratic procedure requested to obtain an economical support by the state. During one of the accompaniment the two mums met and had the chance to share their difficulties related both to the feud situation and to the healthcare one. Empathy was the result.
Empathy can also emerge from sport. Thus we organized a football match between the guys of our youth group and the guys of rehabilitation centre of the Community Pope John XXIII.
Institutions and networking
We have been contacted by a Justice Ministry representative. The Ministry is trying to shed light about the “blood feud” phenomenon in order to deliver documents testifying families’ feud situation. We have noticed that there is some interest about the topic. This is the reason why we think it could be the right moment to make again pressure on the parliament in order to implement the law of 2005 about the creation of a Coordination Committee against the “blood feud” phenomenon.
