When the miners locked themselves in the mine pit, I was in my office. So I showed solidarity with the miners and joined them. Day one, day two passed, the miners would not leave the pit. They requested to meet the leaders, political leaders of the then Kosovo Province. The Trepça employees who were not in the mine pit transformed the production hall into an improvised hospital. Miners’ health condition began to deteriorate.
[…] There we had a role, we took the role of the nurses. We had our on-site doctors, they worked as doctors for the Trepça enterprise. Nurses were there, but a greater number was needed. The miners were in the pit from February 20 ‘til 28. When they came out… day and night I was there and did not go home, not even once. The day I went home to take a shower, they came out of the pit.
After they came out only the miners with a poor health condition remained and were transferred to the Mitrovica hospital. Afterwards, the Serb State Security of that time mistreated the miners though they were already hurting. Everything ended. The violent measures set in, we were interrogated. Everything was bleaker after the miners came out of the pit.
Alije Gashi Tmava was born in 1962 in Mitrovica. In 1985, she graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Prishtina. In the same year, she began working as an economist for the flotation mine at Trepça. After the war of 1999, she worked for the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, also known as ACTED. In 2009, she returned to her previous job position at Trepça, where she works to this day. Mrs. Gashi Tmava is married and lives with her family in Mitrovica.