Among the hundred upsetting sights at Brazda refugee camp near the Serbian border yesterday, it was the plight of Lulieta Limani which compelled most people to pay attention.
No matter that 600 new refugees had swelled the already crowded camp just a short time earlier, or that the UNHCR representative, Ms Paula Ghedini, had confirmed that three of the weekend's intake of Kosovo refugees had given plausible accounts of witnessing executions carried out by Serb forces before they left the province. Ms Limani's distress was too great to ignore.
The 22-year-old woman was weeping loudly and being pushed back again and again by the border police as she attempted to get to a man who was approaching from outside the fence. He, too, was crying, but was preoccupied producing the documentation demanded by the police.
One look at him and it was clear he was Lulieta's father. She was cut out of him. Lulieta's younger brother, Ansim (15), was with her, on the camp side of the fence.
Altogether more calm, he was as concerned with her safety as with seeing his father. He kept holding his sister back from an increasingly angered policeman.
At last her father, Enver, was allowed through. There was a moment of intense happiness, such as is rare in these camps. The jubilation showed not just on Lulieta, Ansim and Enver, but as much on the part of all the other refugees gathered round. The Prodigal Son himself could not have received such a welcome.
When they had all calmed down Lulieta, who was a student of Albanian literature in Pristina and speaks good English, explained their story. She described how the family had been separated from Enver and their sister, Lulzim (20), at the Blace border crossing two weeks ago. They had endured the now all-too-familiar Serb evacuation procedures.
At Blace, Enver and Lulzim were ahead of the others in the queue. When it came to loading people on buses he and Lulzim were taken away and the rest of the family were told "Go back" by the Macedonian police. Later Lulieta, Ansim, their mother, Rifadie, and other brother, Driton (15), were taken to Blazda. They had no idea where their father or sister were, and no one else could tell them.
Her brother, Driton, was taken to the airport to be evacuated. He was to be sent to Germany, where he wanted to go, but when he got to the airport they sent him to Turkey instead. They have not heard from him since.
Every day since she came to Blazda Lulieta has been sitting at the entrance to the camp making inquiries about her father's whereabouts. Then just the other day "a boy from Tetovo" (near another refugee camp) about 50 kilometres from Blazda said he knew Enver and where he was. That was how contact was established.
Enver had come to Brazda for his family. When he found them he could hardly talk with the emotion.
A big man, a hefty mechanical engineer by profession, he hugged everyone in sight, family, strangers, reporters - and yet it seemed he is the sort of man who doesn't go in for hugging as a rule.