Ibrahim Hassani, a Roma gypsy, shouted loudly as if he was arguing with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
But his voice had risen out of desperation. "I beg you and your organisation, we are a small people and very poor. We will be killed here."
Ibrahim is just one of roughly 3,000 Roma refugees who have taken shelter in an old schoolhouse in Kosovo Polje, now a Kfor-protected centre, but where there is no food or water.
As part of her itinerary on a one-day visit to Kosovo, the UN High Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, trailed up the stairs of the school to see the conditions for herself. In a shabby empty classroom she went to meet a man whose face and body was dark and swollen after being badly beaten.
Unnoticed behind her was an old man being led down the stairs suffering from a heart attack. Shocked by what she saw and heard throughout the day from ethnic Albanians, Serbs and Gypsies, Mrs Robinson described Kosovo as being in an "urgent situation and a most volatile time". In another part of Kosovo Polje, the UN High Commissioner met with Orthodox priest Radivoj Banic, who said he feared that as Serbs continued to flee the town, it would be finally impossible for a single one to stay. Balancing her concerns for all those now suffering in the aftermath of the war, Mary Robinson described the situation for minorities as far more worrying than she had expected. She said: "It is important that the international community reinforce security on the ground - first to enable the Serb population to stay and the Roma not to be victimised, and secondly, that the Albanian population who are returning have an understanding that even though they have suffered, they mustn't now repeat the cycle all over again."
While part of Mrs Robinson's message was an end to violence, the other was an end to the impunity for the perpetrators of war crimes. Earlier in the day, she visited the villages of Maticane and Zlatari, where forensic experts working for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (the ICTY) were completing their examinations of the sites of mass killings.
In Zlatari, numbered yellow pegs in the ground marked the site where two elderly brothers, Shaip and Hajriz Ymeri, and Shaip's wife, Shehide, had been shot side-by-side in a quiet country yard. Their bodies, along with those of two others, one a disabled man whose crutches were found left behind, were subsequently put into houses that were burned.
Before holding a forum on ` long-term strategies on human rights' with other UN organisations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe, Mrs Robinson also met with local Kosovan rights groups.
She appeared moved by the account of the wife of the well-known local human rights lawyer, Byrami Kelmendi, who was murdered with their two sons at the beginning of the war. Another representative of the local Centre for the Protection of Women and Children, Sevdije Ahmeti, highlighted the widespread incidence of rape. A victim herself, Ms Ahmeti spoke of the cultural reasons why both male and female rape victims were reluctant to testify. In response , Mrs Robinson said: "It's very hard to have words for victims whose whole lives have been torn apart, but what I do believe as High Commissioner for Human Rights is that we must break the cycle of impunity.
"We know that President Milosovic and four other senior figures have been indicted. It is my hope that they will be brought to a process of justice and that they will stand trial."