(3 Jun 1998) Natural Sound
Hundreds of ethnic Albanians have continued to flee Serbian mortar attacks in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo for the safety of Albania.
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said some 37-hundred ethnic Albanians had arrived in Albania since the Serb assault began late last week.
An O-S-C-E spokesman confirmed that at least two refugees had died as a result of the arduous trek over the mountains.
From the relative safety of the Albanian border, one can see the burning houses of Kosovo.
Plumes of smoke rise from one of the five villages which, ethnic Albanians claim, have been the latest targets of repeated Serbian mortar attacks.
According to Albanian sources, Serb police and paramilitary units, backed by Yugoslav army tanks, set fire to the houses.
Their claims are lent credibility by the appearance of two Serbian tanks, wending their way along a road parallel to the border.
Whatever is happening in Kosovo -- and it is almost impossible to verify reports as the Serbs have sealed off the area -- its ethnic Albanian inhabitants are running scared.
These rag-tag groups of refugees said they have been walking for 24 hours.
They left home with only the clothes they were wearing.
They bring to around 37-hundred the total number of ethnic Albanians who have fled their homes since the weekend, when, they claim, the battery of shelling began.
And these could be only the first wave.
Albania's state-run ATA news agency says around 3-thousand more
refugees are heading for the border.
Tired, hungry and dazed, the refugees are met at the first passable roads by vehicles run by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Albanian army.
An O-S-C-E spokesman said two people had died on the arduous trek -- a 60-year-old man who died of a heart attack and a 4-year-old girl who died when her mother, who was carrying her, slipped and fell on a rocky path.
Nobody knows exactly how many have died in the latest wave of attacks in the sealed-off area.
Dozens are believed dead since the start of a stepped-up campaign last week by the Serbs -- who appear to be on a determined campaign to wipe out the pro-independence Kosovo Liberation Army -- or K-L-A.
At least 80 people were killed in a similar crackdown in March -- and estimates put at more than 200 people the total number of people killed this year in clashes.
Ethnic Albanian leaders say the Serbs are following a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing -- similar to the one they used in Bosnia.
And they have pleaded with Western officials for military intervention.
But NATO allies, with 34-thousand troops already in neighbouring Bosnia, are reluctant to commit another big contingent to the Balkans.
In Brussels on Wednesday, the NATO ministers agreed to consider again whether to deploy combat troops to neighbouring Albania and Macedonia, but indicated a decision is not imminent.
Many of the refugees are ending up at this border town of Tropoje.
The U-N-H-C-R has sent around 25 tons of aid to the region -- but the local authorities said that with more refugees arriving by the hour, supplies would soon run dry.
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