These days, Dr. Agron Aliu wears many hats, from a loving father and husband to an emergency room doctor and family physician in Ontario’s busy hospitals playing a crucial role during a critical time in healthcare as Canada and the world and its frontline workers who worked tirelessly in what seemed a journey without a finish line during one of the most challenging pandemic of our time, Covid-19. While his work keeps him on his toes, he shows great gratitude toward Canada but mostly to his wife Besa Mulaku who he says stood by him every step of the way in helping him get re-certified in Canada as a licensed medical practitioner – a journey over a decade long “despite these challenges both me and my wife decided that I should do my best to get recertified as a physician, my wife Besa did pledge her full support for me to achieve this goal” he says.

As Canada grapples with historic challenges in its healthcare system, Dr. Alija, carries a past shaped by another crisis—one that took place over two decades ago in the heart of Europe. Long before attending to the pressing demands of Canada’s healthcare system, Dr. Alija was a witness to the brutal ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in Kosovo, a region then under the grip of Serbia, formerly part of Yugoslavia.

During the late 1990s, Kosovo became a battleground for freedom as Serbian forces unleashed a campaign of violence and oppression against ethnic Albanians. The conflict, marked by widespread atrocities, displaced hundreds of thousands and left the world leaders searching for solutions to end the crisis and having NATO intervene.

In 1998, Dr. Alija joined the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM) as a translator, working closely with international observers and local medical authorities in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. The mission, established to monitor and document human rights abuses.

“I saw humanity at its worst and its best,” Dr. Alija says.

Dr. Alija continued his work as KDOM transitioned into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which took on a broader mandate to stabilize the region. He remained with the OSCE until the spring of 1999, when the NATO bombing campaign began. The airstrikes, aimed at halting Serbia’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, marked a turning point in the conflict.

Dr. Alija feels his family got lucky where they were spared from fatalities and damage to their home. They fled to Macedonia’s refugee camp where Dr. Alija worked with the Canadian Embassy in interviewing refugees, little did he know that Canada would become his family’s adoptive homeland. Doctor Aliu’s extraordinary efforts and tireless work during ‘Operation Parasol’ earned him prestigious recognition from the US State Department and Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"I think that Canada did an exceptional job in helping Kosovar refugees integrating into the new reality, even 25 years later I do not see that happening with refugees anywhere in the world" he says.

Dr. Alija's daughter Arita is also giving back to Canada's healthcare in incredible ways as a family physician, she was three-year-old when the family escaped the war in Kosovo for a new life in Canada the family says was worth the sacrifice. Now the family are proud Canadians giving back to the very country that once was their rescue.