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In Wade Goddard’s imagination, Kosovo is still fixed as a picture of bodies of murdered children lying on the wet ground – an image that appears in his new book, ‘The Kosovo War’, which was published last month.

In his photographs, Goddard portrays the bitter tragedy that many Kosovo Albanian families went through during the 1998-99 war, and the effects of the conflict on their lives and feelings.

But Goddard never imagined that his passion for photography would lead him to capture a series of wars, until one day he glanced at the cover of a magazine featuring images of the conflict-scorched Croatian town of Vukovar, which was besieged and destroyed by Belgrade’s forces in 1991.

Wade Goddard. Photo courtesy of Wade Goddard.

A city of ruins and roads filled with bodies of murdered people haunted his thoughts and caused him to journey to Yugoslavia in the midst of its bloody dissolution.

At that time, the 22-year-old New Zealander was unemployed and had no professional experience.

“I never thought I would work on the battlefield. I contacted a photographer to ask him how to get there. I came for one month but I stayed in the Balkans forever,” said Goddard in an interview for BIRN from his home in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

From Croatia, war spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Goddard’s pictures from the embattled town of Mostar featured in media all over the world.

“Bosnia and Kosovo was my university. I learned the business. How to make a deal and how sell my pictures to media,” he explained.

During the next ten years as a freelance photographer for Reuters, the New York Times, the Associated Press and Newsweek, he covered la series of conflicts.

Among the scenes that gripped him the most in Bosnia was the arrival of thousands of refugees from Srebrenica at a stadium while the notorious July 1995 massacres were being prepared.

“It was a football field where normally everybody cheers and gets energy, but then it was inverted into a place of grief. Women were crying because they were left without their children, their husbands,” Goddard recalled.

On April 22, 1999, Kosovo Albanians cross the Kosovo-Albanian border during a renew surge of expulsions by Serbian forces. Photo: Wade Goddard.

Massacre on a hill

One morning in September 1998, Goddard headed to western Kosovo, where he saw on a village hill the mass murders of civilians, including women and children, who were shot while attempting to flee.

“The execution of children was one of most heinous scenes. Twenty-five women and children were executed while they tried to run away through bushes. One of them was a newborn. It was horrific, and one of my dreadful moments in Kosovo,” he said.

In the book are images of bodies on the ground, partially covered by blankets, people suffering in the mountains and in improvised refugee camps.

In one of the pictures, an Albanian man called Imer Deliu from the village of Abri in Drenas in central Kosovo has laid the body of his murdered four-year-old child on a wooden board, while he stands there frozen like stone. His wife had also been murdered; 16 members of this family were killed in total in September 1998.

A six-month-old infant from the family was found alive in the arms of her murdered mother, but died a few hours later.

“So being in a scene like that was dreadful, physically and mentally wracking. This heavy atmosphere still resonates in my life, and I will never forget,” he added.

Goddard portrayed the atrocities and horrors of war, but also the human efforts to break the chain of violence and retribution.

“The waste of human life and the tragedy for those who were involved cannot be forgotten,” he explained.

On June 16, 1999, Kosovo Albanians wave at German NATO troops at the Morina border crossing with Albania on their return to Kosovo after the war . Photo: Wade Goddard.

Keeping memories alive

Goddard hopes that images like the ones he captured during a decade of wars can contribute to documenting some of its darkest pages in recent human history in Europe.

“Images like those in Kosovo or others in Bosnia may serve in the future to change the course of human history. But then again, if you think that it is enough for any change, you will be greatly disappointed,” he added.

Now 49, Goddard believes that his pictures from Kosovo keep alive the memory of the people who died.

“We always hope that such images can cause public awareness and may put some pressure on decision-makers. At least we did what we have to do. We recorded some terrible moments and we tried to shed light on the truth,” he said.

He feels that there was never real justice for the crimes that were committed in the former Yugoslavia. “Justice is never served. How? The same guys sell arms from one war to the other and made money and nothing happened to them,” he explained.

He also believes that the history of Kosovo, how it was born as a state and the sacrifices that were made, should not be twisted or used for political purposes. “We must stick to the truth that crime also was committed by the Albanian side. This is the whole package of the birth of Kosovo,” he said.

Amid the despair, the killings and the burned villages in the pictures in Goddard’s book, he also wanted to show people’s courage and hope.

“Despite how deep the misery was and no matter how the grave the situation was, I always saw a piece of hope in the eyes of these people who were trapped in the misery of war. I found it there,” he said.

More information about Wade Goddard’s book, ‘The Kosovo War’, is available here.