In September 1998, Ramadan Nishori, then 21 years old, was arrested in his hometown of Drenas and taken to a local police station. While standing in a long line of other Albanian detainees waiting to be questioned, two Serbian police officers pulled him aside and took him into the bathroom, where one of them raped him.
That same day, Nishori — like many other Albanians suspected of political activity — was arrested on charges of terrorism. On the eve of the war’s end in June 1999, he was transferred to Serbia, where he remained imprisoned until his release in 2001, when the Yugoslav government passed a bill granting amnesty to several hundred Albanians.
More than two decades later, Nishori became the first male survivor of sexual violence during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo to publicly share his story.
At a two-hour public event held on April 14, at Kino Armata in Prishtina, Nishori recounted his experience of being raped by a Serbian police officer, along with his long journey through trauma, silence and healing.
Sitting beside his longtime psychologist, Selvije Izeti, he spoke about the life he has built under the shadow of trauma. The event was organized by the Kosova Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims (KRCT), in commemoration of the Memorial Day for Survivors of Sexual Violence during the War in Kosovo.
“I am a man, a father, trying to build a normal life. I have a wife who has supported me my entire life and children who are the light of my life,” Nishori began. “I want people to see me as someone who has been through a lot — and who has never been broken. I don’t want them to see me with pity, but with respect. As a man who has fallen and gotten back on his feet.”
“I am here not to forget what I have been through, but to no longer remain a prisoner of the past,” he added.
One of the many attacks carried out by Serbian forces on the villages of Drenica occurred during the last week of September 1998 — a period reported by Human Rights Watch as the “Week of Terror in Drenica.” During this time, Nishori had taken refuge in the village of Negroc, along with his family and relatives, while the assault forced hundreds of residents to flee their homes.
After Serbian forces entered the village, soldiers separated the men from the women — a practice common throughout the war. Nishori, along with several other men, was taken to the police station in Drenas.
On the night of September 26, 1998, while waiting to be questioned, two police officers pulled him into the bathroom. After one of the officers sexually assaulted him, Nishori recalled that the other was preparing to do the same. However, at that moment, alerted by Nishori’s screams, an Albanian man who was working at the station intervened and took him outside. Nishori was never questioned that night.
“This thing that happened to you — you must never tell anyone about it,” the Serbian police later told him.
Like many political prisoners at the time, Nishori was first sent to the prison in Prishtina, then to the one in Lipjan and finally to the infamous Dubrava prison — where he later witnessed and survived the massacre that took place between May 19-24, 1999.
Nishori married shortly after his release from prison in 2001. He lived with his parents and brothers in the village but he kept his traumatic experience to himself, unable to share it with anyone.
“When I got married, I told myself; I’m leaving the past behind and starting a new life,” he said. “But that was impossible. I lived in constant fear that someone would find out what had happened.”
Living in Drenas, near the scene of the crime, he and his wife moved to Fushë Kosovë out of fear that someone would find out the truth.
“I felt freer, but still closed off — like I had a prison inside me. I tried to tell myself that it was war, but it was still impossible to accept,” he said.
When Izeti asked Nishori if he had ever felt the need to share his story with anyone, Nishori replied:
“I didn’t feel the need to tell, because I told myself ‘I’m a man, and no one should know.’ I thought that if I spoke up, they would despise me, they would bully me,” he said. “I would run away from home at night, cry, let it out — and then go back. Because shame is greater than pain.”
Seeking peace and support
For more than 20 years, Nishori lived in silence, haunted by trauma, guilt and self-hatred. His mental health deteriorated and he was unable to speak about what he had experienced.
Although he had heard of women being targeted by Serbian forces during the war, he was unaware that sexual violence had also been used against men. The silence surrounding the issue only deepened his sense of isolation. One reason sexual violence against men and boys remained unreported for so long is that many organizations supporting survivors were explicitly established as women’s rights organizations, focusing exclusively on female survivors. In Kosovo, only KRCT had the expertise to work with male survivors and address their traumatic experiences of torture.
In 2005, after dozens of attempts over the years, Nishori approached the KRCT for the first time but didn’t have the courage to go inside. He later decided to leave Kosovo and emigrated with his family to Montenegro — but he didn’t find peace there either.
A turning point came on October 16, 2018, when he saw Vasfije Krasniqi-Goodman giving an interview on Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK). Krasniqi-Goodman was the first woman to speak publicly about the sexual violence she experienced during the war.
“I envied her,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘she’s speaking and freeing herself.’”
Nishori immediately reached out to her and shared that he had often gone to organizations that offered help, but had never found the courage to walk inside.
“The next day, I went — and I never stopped going since,” he said.
The start of Nishori’s psychological sessions at KRCT in 2018 coincided with the beginning of an official recognition by the Kosovo government for survivors of wartime sexual violence. This recognition allowed survivors to apply for victim status and receive a monthly pension through the government Verification Commission. That same year, organizations like KRCT began receiving more testimonies from male survivors of wartime sexual violence. The possibility of official recognition and financial support encouraged dozens of men to seek help and share their experiences.
The number of women reaching out to support organizations also increased significantly. During this period, Nishori realized for the first time that he was not the only man who had experienced sexual violence.
During the event at Kino Armata in April 2025, Nishori spoke about the beginning of his healing journey through therapeutic sessions at KRCT — from the first day, when he began to tell his story with a bowed head, to the days that gradually became easier, especially during group therapy sessions with other men who had experienced sexual violence during the war. As his condition began to improve, he made the decision to tell his wife.
“She said, ‘It was a war. It could have happened to anyone. You’ve had my support until now — from now on, you’ll have even more,’” he recalled. “After that, I no longer felt the need to run away from home.”
He then decided to tell his daughter, inviting her to one of their regular coffee outings. Unable to find the right words, he simply shared the Verification Commission’s decision, since he had already been granted victim status.
“She hugged me and said, ‘I’ll always be by your side,’” Nishori recalled. “I felt liberated — like 500 pounds had been lifted off my shoulders.”
His only remaining concern was how to tell his two sons the truth — a load his daughter willingly took on.
He emphasized that family support was crucial in rebuilding his sense of self, including his role as a father.
“After many years, I finally felt like a father,” he said. “A real father — because I had never been able to truly be one for my family or to take care of them.”
At the end of his story, Nishori addressed others who may have gone through similar experiences, encouraging them not to remain silent. He also urged the families of survivors to stand by them and offer their support throughout the healing journey.
“And I tell them — the shame is not ours. The shame is theirs [the perpetrators],” he said.
Men, under the shadow of oblivion, trauma and silence
To date, the KRCT has treated around 700 survivors of war-related sexual violence. Approximately 10% of them are men.
It is estimated that up to 20,000 people were subjected to sexual violence during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. In the immediate aftermath of the war, organizations like Human Rights Watch documented the systematic nature of these crimes, linking them to Slobodan Milošević’s regime strategy of ethnically cleansing Kosovar Albanians.
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina marked a historic moment in international law, officially recognizing rape as both a crime against humanity and a weapon of war. It brought global attention to sexual violence against both women and men, leading to the first United Nations investigation into sexual violence against men and boys during armed conflict. It also underscored the fact that such violence frequently occurs in detention centers and prisons.
Now, Nishori’s story could help spark a broader conversation — one that includes the experiences of men who have long been left in the shadows, often overlooked and misunderstood. Organizations like KRCT have worked with male survivors who, like women, have been sexually abused in various settings such as in their own homes, while fleeing as refugees or even on the streets. However, a significant number of cases have occurred in detention centers, particularly targeting political prisoners.
Mental health professionals in Kosovo, who work with survivors of sexual violence, have previously told K2.0 that over half the male survivors they treat have reported being sexually abused while in detention — whether in prisons, police stations or makeshift facilities. In fact, some evidence suggests that sexual violence by Yugoslav police against Albanian men and boys in Kosovo began as early as the 1980s and early 1990s, during periods of political unrest. A 1993 Amnesty International report cites a medical certificate from Prizren documenting the case of a man who was hospitalized after being detained by police. The certificate states that he had suffered a laceration to his left testicle as a result of being beaten with a rubber baton.
The true extent of sexual violence perpetrated against men and boys during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo remains unclear. The deadline to apply for the official recognition as a survivor of sexual violence is expected to close in May 2025. Only once this process is complete will the evidence gathered by the Verification Commission and nongovernmental organizations begin to offer a fuller — albeit still partial — understanding of the scope and nature of this violence.
Feature Image: Footage from a live broadcast by Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK).
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