Refugee tells how Serb police stabbed his uncle to death and blew up house

Shefki Ademas (33) explained last night how he saw his uncle killed by Serb police a week ago.

It happened in the village of Satime in the Lipjane area of Kosovo. Shefki had a house there.

He accommodated eight OSCE personnel in it before they evacuated Kosovo on March 20th. He said he had also worked for the OSCE.

With his extended family, including his late uncle, he had hidden in the basement of his house for a week.

Then the Serbs came to blow it up and all had to get out. As they left, Serb police grabbed his uncle and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. He died on the spot. They blew up the house.

With him when he arrived at the Brazda camp last night were his father, Muharrem, brother of the dead man, his wife, his three children and his brother.

They had arrived by train at Blace at 10.30 yesterday morning.

Nine hours later they were taken from there to Blasda. They were exhausted and distressed.

Muhomedali Fera (28) was just distressed. He, too, was at Blace, but while Shefki was in noman'sland awaiting deliverance Muhomedali was trying to get into the nearby transit camp.

His stepmother and her two children ("my father had two wives") were there since Sunday night, but Macedonian police would not let him in to them.

All he wanted to do was give them his phone number, he said. He came away crying in frustration.

His father, his aunt, an uncle and a first cousin had been killed by the Serbs in the Kosovan town of Kacinik, he said.

Reports indicate that between 40 and 60 people were killed there last Sunday fortnight.

On March 28th, four days after the NATO bombing had begun, Muhomedali ("It's like Cassius Clay," he said, before spelling his name) walked for 20 hours over the mountains to Macedonia with two of his brothers, an aunt, his wife and two children. They are staying with cousins in Skopje.

He stood on the roadside above the transit camp waving and shouting at the two excited children inside and his stepmother.

Gzim Lekici (19) was waving, too, as delighted as the children in the transit camp. But he was waving at his brother, Memet (24), in no-man's-land.

Gzim had come from Germany three days ago to look for his family.

He hadn't seen them since he was last home in the village of Gadime, in the Lipjane area of Kosovo, three months ago. It was chance that he was at Blace yesterday, rather than searching at one of the camps.

He recognised his brother in the crowd and began waving frantically at him. Somehow his brother noticed. He was about 200 yards away. They began to wave wildly at each another. Gzim looked exhausted but could hardly contain himself.

Later Memet was taken away by bus. They were not allowed meet.

Neither media nor waiting Albanians are allowed near refugees in no-man's-land.

Gzim thought his brother was being taken to Brazda, but he wasn't there. No one knew where he was and no one told Gzim.