Slobodanka Djokic: Everything is destroyed, we don’t know how we will continue

Slobodanka Djokic from Radevo near Lipljan, owner of a household where auxiliary buildings burned down last night, expressed her concern about how her family will continue to engage in farming. As she pointed out, the flames engulfed the land cultivation machines, hay, clover, and a corn trailer.

Djokic said that the fire occurred last night around 9:30 PM while her family members were gathered in the house.

A neighbor informed her about the fire, she emphasizes. "It was the second evening of the New Year. The neighbor called us and said that the barn was burning. Then the boys and my husband went. When they arrived at the scene, everything was already ablaze, the fire first caught the clover. There were machines and attachments. We had all possible tractor attachments there, two presses, a cyclone for sowing, two trailers, one of which was full of corn with bags, 3,000 bales of hay, about 500 bales of clover. We had all sorts of things there, firewood for heating, building materials, material we kept to remodel something," Djokic said.

The burned facility was large since the family is solely involved in agriculture.

Djokic tearfully tells that inspectors and police arrived at the scene, and the fire brigade worked all night.

However, the fire is still burning, and the facility, along with everything in it, is completely destroyed. "They fought the fire and failed to extinguish it, it is still burning. I don’t know what to tell you. This is a huge loss for our family that lives off it. Neither my husband nor I work elsewhere, he is now retiring, I’m still not doing anything. We live off the land, we farm eight hectares of our land, 29 hectares in total, with hay and clover. Now it's questionable whether we will be able to work. We have no machines, nothing, only tractors remain, but we cannot work with them alone," Djokic pointed out, adding that this place was their "second home."

She states that the police questioned whether the family suspects anyone. However, she says, none of the household members saw anything.

"We only heard dogs barking. The neighbor saw the fire, called us and we immediately went, but it was too late. The hay was dry and nothing could be done, we just made sure that the fire did not spread further through the village to ignite neighboring houses," she recalls last night's incident at her household.

This is the second time a fire has broken out in the Djokic household.

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija announced that by burning the auxiliary buildings of the Djokic family, a direct hit was made on the livelihood of this honest Serbian family engaged in agriculture, and highlighted that, together with its representatives on the ground, it will help in this situation.

The Djokic household was also visited today by the president of the PO Municipality of Lipljan, Milan Joksimovic.