Serbian forces burned villages and drove more ethnic Albanians from their homes in central Kosovo yesterday, despite threats that their attacks might provoke NATO air strikes.
Witnesses said Serbian special police carrying automatic weapons strode out of the smoke and flame of Gornja Klina, evidently having finished their work in the village, which is about 5 km north of the town of Srbica.
Several hundred ethnic Albanian refugees who fled the burning settlement huddled in fear along the road to Srbica or wandered aimlessly, uncertain which way to go in an area surrounded by Serbian security forces, armour and artillery.
Government troops have been pounding suspected Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) positions in the rebel stronghold of Drenica since the weekend, driving tens of thousands of people from their villages.
The assault on Drenica, which followed a three-week offensive against KLA villages to the east near Vucitrn, began on Saturday as international monitors of the Kosovo Verification Mission were evacuating the province. The 1,380 monitors pulled out after peace talks on Kosovo collapsed in Paris on Friday.
Ethnic Albanians, 90 per cent of the population in the southern province of Serbia, had signed an internationally sponsored autonomy deal. But Serbian authorities, who rule Kosovo directly from Belgrade, rejected both the plan and deployment of 28,000 NATO troops to ensure its implementation.
A convoy of 19 armoured troop carriers sped from Mitrovica towards Drenica yesterday, demonstrating that the Serb offensive was not over. Reporters saw government mortar pits and howitzers along the Mitrovica-Srbica road. Heavy shells were landing in Lausa, just west of Srbica, and the sound of multi-barrel rocket launchers could be heard in the distance.
Fresh refugee flows from Likovac and Rezala descended upon the village of Tusilje, where at least 1,500 people driven from their homes were already sheltering with the 700 permanent residents. The new arrivals spoke of shells that began falling on their villages on Sunday afternoon and continued until dawn yesterday.
"We need help from the outside, food and especially milk for the children," said Mr Aziz Sadiku (43), the village president. "You can see more people are arriving here every moment but the houses are full and those who come must live outside."
The local school was packed with displaced families, as were village homes, storehouses and animal shelters. Horse-drawn wagons creaked through an icy stream that bisects Tusilje, hauling even more families into the village crush of crying children and fetid sleeping rooms.
Those who arrived late sat in the sun on the ground where they had slept overnight, in their wagons, buried under blankets, looking stunned. Village elders worried that the onset of rain or snow would leave some refugees struggling to survive.
Many who found Tusilje too crowded moved on down the road towards the village of Vojnik, hoping to find shelter there.
"If we don't get help from the international community it will be a massive catastrophe for our people, we'll die," warned Mr Alija Shaban (60). He was walking behind carts carrying 25 members of his family.
"Where's NATO? We signed the agreement. They promised to protect us if we signed and we did. If something doesn't happen soon we're all going to end up in a mass grave."
Drenica, an area of rolling hills that begins about 40 km west of Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, has been known for most of this century as a centre for ethnic Albanian resistance to Serbian rule. More recently it spawned much of the senior leadership of the KLA. Likovac, under attack yesterday, has been one of the KLA's main bases for months.
Incomparably better armed and trained than it was a year ago, the KLA still seems no match for Yugoslav army and Serbian special police troops. Yesterday the guerrillas were being hit by long-range weapons to which they have no answer.
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, expressed alarm yesterday at the continued fighting in Kosovo.
"I am increasingly alarmed that continued confrontation in Kosovo, including persistent breaches of the ceasefire, has led to a substantial aggravation of the situation," he said in a report on Kosovan humanitarian problems. "I urge both parties to halt military activities in Kosovo."
Mr Annan said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 211,000 people had been displaced by the fighting in Kosovo.