Hamza says most of the refugees
are afraid to go out from the camp
HAMZA PAJEZITAJ, AGED 21
I run a business in the camp, cleaning people's cars and carpets. I started it two years ago. I won a competition at the local Catholic Church with my business plan and they gave me 500 euros to get started.
Sometimes taxi drivers come from the town to get their cars cleaned because I charge three euros and it's five euros in town. I'm pretty affordable.
I was 10 when we left Kosovo. I remember arriving at the camp and thinking it was just too full of people. There were more than 10,000 people here then and it's still crowded now.
The people who live around us here are really aggressive. It's discrimination. I don't have as many problems as most people in the camps because I've met people from town through my business. I'm accepted in a way. But most of the others who live here feel too afraid to go out.
It's not so much the local people who fight with us as the local Roma who have lived here for years. They consider us, refugees, to be a lower status than them.
It's difficult for us to start any kind of life here because we can't earn money. We're not allowed to sell on the streets so most people survive by eating food from garbage cans.
The conditions in the camp are bad. It's dirty everywhere and there aren't enough toilets. The biggest problem people have is to heat enough water to wash themselves and their things.
The air stinks of the piles of rubbish we live in. The garbage depot is just next door. It's the main depot in Montenegro and takes the rubbish for the whole of Podgorica. They burn rubbish there almost every day and the smoke comes over into the camp. People have a lot of lung problems here.
Conditions are getting worse because people's homes are falling apart. They were only ever meant to be temporary and we've been living in these huts and tents for 11 years.
The mayor of Podgorica said he wants us to go back to Kosovo but it's just not possible. Our houses were burned and our lives there were destroyed.
Those who are lucky go abroad, to Europe. Others just have to keep their heads down and survive. I can't go back to Kosovo now. I have nothing there. This is my home now.
