Macedonian Teenager Found in Belgrade Was Abducted and Forced to Beg

What we've been through these past three weeks I wouldn't wish to my biggest enemy, says Srekjko Stanojevic with teary eyes, father of 17-year-old Marjan, the boy with vision impairment who went missing on April 25 in front of the main trade center in Skopje where he collected money for an eye surgery.

While a Telegraf.mk team was having morning coffee with Marjan's parents in their home, Srekjko had a hard time hiding his emotions - mixed feelings of happiness, fear, desire for justice, seeing the person who kidnapped his only child being punished... Strongly pressing his son against his body, Marjan's father told the reporters a story that is astonishing, almost movie-like... starting from the time when he desperately searched for his son through the streets of Belgrade, until Tuesday evening, when the whole family got off the bus at the international station in Skopje.

The search for Marjan took 22 days.

"After he first went missing, we were told that he had been seen in Resen. We went there but we didn't find him. It turned out the information was false. Then, our police told us he got on a bus owned by Nis Express and took off for Serbia. The Macedonian embassy in Serbia told us he might be in Belgrade. I spent ten days there. The Serbian police was also informed but I was looking for him on my own. Then my wife joined me. We put on the posters ourselves, we scoured through the city center, the Kalemegdan fortress, the parks... All in vain," Srekjko told the Telegraf.mk journalists.

Two days ago, the teenager's father received a call from the Macedonian embassy in Belgrade. He was told his child was at the embassy's premises and that he needed to come and take him. Marjan spent the entire time with two brothers, most probably of Roma origin, at their house in Belgrade. One of them, the kidnapper, was only 19. The identity of the two brothers needs to be additionally verified by the Serbian police. They kept Marjan locked inside their house for days, took his money away, but also his clothes. Moreover, they broke his glasses so he would not be able to run away and forced him to beg for them. If he refused or if he failed to bring them money, he was beaten.

"When we saw him at the embassy, he was a different person. He had old clothes on, smelly.. He didn't even have underwear. They took everything away from him. He had bruises on his body. Marjan told us he managed to escape the house on Monday. He made it to the area known as Usce and was spotted there by an older lady. He seemed strange, she realized he wasn't a Serbian and she called the police. The police then contacted the embassy and called us. We took him and came home last night," Srekjko said, sharing details.

It is still unclear how Marjan managed to cross the Macedonian-Serbian border as an underage person, carrying only and ID card on. He passed the frontier without any problems.

It is also uncertain how he succeeded in withdrawing money from his father's bank account without being in possession of Srekjko's ID card. He withdrew MKD 9,000 and headed to Serbia.

The parents say that due to his vision impairment, i.e. he is around 80% blind, he lost sense of orientation, which happened before, but he was never gone for more than a day. To go missing and not to call his parents is something that had never happened before.