He knows that he is "in blood", as the expression goes, and that his life is in danger and that he has to be very careful.". Police arrest feud participants and investigate feud murders, bringing culprits to … Today he is confined to a squat on an abandoned Soviet-era factory works in the capital,Tirana, where his family has built protective 8ft-high walls to hide him from view. Meanwhile, Mrs Luani continues to worry about Niko's future. The Kanun - or code - is a 500-year-old text that still dictates how blood feuds are carried out in Albania. The other player mocked him for being willing to fight over such a thing but not brave enough to avenge his father’s murder. There are two reasons to push a … It is, his mother, File, says, “like being dead once again”. 'For every 10 children we auditioned, roughly one or two had some family members involved in a blood feud,' he says, pointing out of the car window to a red-tiled house on the side of the road where a family has been in isolation for three years. 'It has been 10 years that I have been isolated like this,' frowns Pashk, a shy, wide-eyed boy who looks, dresses and longs to be just like any other normal European teenager. Latest news on cruise lines and holidays, Man arrested after woman's body discovered on National Trust estate. Twelve-year-old Yussef has never been to school, and although illiterate, he can speak English perfectly. Niko lives with his elderly grandparents and is in danger every time he leaves his home. But it continued to run parallel to state rule, governing everything from the economic organisation of households to notions of honour. So they simply turned the other cheek. 'It is not something that is going to go away that easily, as it has been here for hundreds of years. Soon, though, the blood feud dramas that play out up and down the country will be recreated on the big screen, courtesy of top US independent filmmaker Joshua Marston, who last month finished shooting a fictional movie about a family in the middle of a blood feud. He was only able to study until the fifth grade, and that was only through the assistance of a teacher who would come to his house to teach him. The eyes of the eldest, Kujtim, are etched with pain over the loss of his father. Ownership of the field has been disputed ever since communist times, but suddenly flares up into a quarrel which culminates in Sokol's death. The brother had won his appeal to the … Dozens of others families in the northern Shkodra region of Albania also live virtual self-imposed house arrest in fear of their lives. 'Life could not be worse - it would almost be better to be in jail myself.'. Abazi speaks not from research, but from personal experience. Mrs Luani told us that Niko knows little about the feud. Marku, though, insists the government is not doing enough to prevent what it sees as an embarrassing relic. But then, one day when she was in the fifth grade, a car sped up behind her and offered her money to get in. ', It means the Kanun also gets invoked in cases which should never have been deemed matters of honour in the first place. One day when this friend was playing football in the street, he got into a fight with another player over whether or not a goal should have been allowed. Shkurte shakes her head. 'The entire village agreed it was an accident, and my nephew was jailed for three months anyway, but the other boy's family do not forgive us,' says Deliaj, sipping brandy in the family's new home in a shabby township on the outskirts of Tirana. Colonel Gjovalin Loka, the police chief for the Shkodra region, said he was doing all he could to prevent and investigate blood feuds. 'In one case recently, a young man killed the mother of his brother's murderer. 'The police will try to restrain the family of the victim, but they often come from the same areas as the feuders, and if they get directly involved they will make things worse.'. According to the kanun, I should have killed his 16-year-old son, so having him experience pain the way I did. The Kanun makes a come-back. And not even the law can help them. But either way, the problem recently attracted the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Professor Philip Alston, who came to investigate back in February. And even if he did have the freedom to move about, nobody would hire a man with a gjakmarrja sentence hanging over him. It is a matter of justice and a justice that is collectively shared.". 1997: Economic crisis caused by pyramid schemes led to widespread social disorder. By the early 20th century, printed copies of the Kanun appeared, ensuring that the vendetta tradition remained alive and well during the interwar reign of Albania's modernising King Zog: rumour has it that he was the target of more than 600 blood feuds, including 55 assassination attempts.