Tetovo in Two Days: A 14-Year-Old Badly Injured in a School Yard, a 62-Year-Old Attacked by Minors, a Boy Running From a Motorcycle

On October 29, at around 12:30, the Emergency Center in Tetovo informed police that it had admitted a 14-year-old child from a village near Tetovo with serious bodily injuries. According to the report, a peer attacked the child, on school grounds. In other words, in the very place where parents drop their kids off every morning believing they're safe.

Also at around 12:30, near a shopping center in Tetovo, two minors aged 17 and 16 attacked M.Sh. (62) from the village of Odri and took his money. When the man managed to hold on to the 17-year-old, the boy injured him with a sharp object. A police patrol that happened to be passing arrested the attacker, and the 16-year-old was found that afternoon at 16:15. Both are being held at a police station and a filing is expected.

The next day, the bulletin carries on. At 15:15, a father and his 14-year-old son reported a physical attack by a classmate from a Tetovo primary school. Whether this has anything to do with the previous day's case, the police don't say. Twenty minutes later, another father reported that his underage son, walking home from football practice, noticed two people on a motorcycle following him with the intent to attack him. The boy managed to get away.

There isn't a motive in any of these bulletins. There's only a sentence that keeps repeating: measures are being taken to clear up the case. Meanwhile, some Tetovo residents say they now drive their children everywhere by car, afraid they'll be attacked.

Each case on its own is a job for the police. Put together, they're a question for many more institutions. Who answers for a child with serious injuries in a school yard? What did the school do, what did the Ministry of Education do? And more importantly: how many bulletins like these have to be lined up side by side before someone in charge steps forward and says what is actually happening to the children of Tetovo?