A Bloody Night in Parliament
A Bloody Night in Parliament Maja Blaževska Evrosimoska | Al Jazeera Balkans Correspondent - Macedonia It was April 27, 2017.
As the press conference went on, a Macedonian news channel broadcast a live report of protesters entering the building. “I just can’t stay here,” I told a colleague and left the room. But a balaclava- wearing mob had already surrounded us. These people were seething and I had a feeling they were there to kill. Panicking, I entered a conference room behind me, where there were cabins for translators. Feeling confused and trapped, I wondered if I should stay there and hide. I called my husband. “Don’t stay alone, go back and stay in a group,” he screamed down the line while watching the incident live on TV at home. When I returned to where the demonstrators were, the riot had escalated. They intended to find the opposition leader or the Speaker and kill them. As they tried to break into the press room, a parliament employee told me to follow her. “I will try to get you out of here,” she said. It wasn’t a good plan. A security guard ordered me into a nearby room. It was a doctor’s office. A few minutes later, the first injured MPs started to arrive. I saw Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska bleeding from her injuries. A news editor from
Sarajevo called my mobile and asked me to describe what I was witnessing. I proceeded to report live, describing the scene around me: the injured MPs and colleagues, the sense of fear and uncertainty. Later on, security guards moved us journalists to another room. It was getting dark, but they ordered us not to turn on the lights or use our phones. I did one more live report whispering in the darkness.
I was bathing my two-year-old daughter at the start of what was supposed to be a long weekend when my mobile phone rang. It was our cameraman. “It’s going to be rough in parliament, I am sure we will need some help. Grab a taxi and go directly there,” he said. A few minutes later, unaware of the challenges that lay ahead, I passed through a police cordon to enter the Macedonian parliament in the country’s capital, Skopje. In the press centre, the newly elected Speaker was giving his first press conference. He had been elected after months of political deadlock over the formation of a new government. It was the first time an ethnic Albanian had been appointed to that position – and came as a huge blow to the nationalist government that had been leading the country for more than a decade. Outside the parliament building, a nationalist crowd was protesting. Demonstrators had blocked the capital’s main streets, carrying flags and other paraphernalia, just as they had for the past couple of months.
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