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Crisis in Kosovo

March 28, 1999
Web posted at: 4:29 a.m. EST (0929 GMT)

In this story: Houses in flames Villages reportedly wiped out KLA pleads for NATO ground troops RELATED STORIES, SITES

KUKES, Albania (CNN) -- A stream of headlights miles long wound toward this northeastern Albanian town on Sunday, as thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, fled Kosovo.

"We don't know where the men are," said Julia Taft, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for population, refugees and migration. Taft said the exodus renews fears of "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo.

About 2,000 refugees have arrived in Kukes so far, and the number could climb as high as 15,000, Taft said. Workers from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will be assisting the new arrivals.

But fewer refugees are making it across borders as the fighting steps up in Kosovo, said Taft.

"What we're hearing is that very few are able to leave Kosovo right now," Taft said. "There is intensive fighting within Kosovo, near the Macedonian border and near Albania, which is preventing people from being able to escape."

A number of U.S. officials have expressed concern about unconfirmed reports of atrocities in several towns and villages across Kosovo.

However, they point out that there is little independent information or confirmation of what is happening in the beseiged province.

CNN's Matthew Chance in Macedonia said some fleeing refugees have reported executions, of fathers and sons taken from homes and shot, children killed as their parents watched, and parents killed as their children witnessed. However, those reports have not been verified.

Many refugees told Chance of "whole villages being surrounded by Yugoslav forces and the whole village being burned to the ground," he said.

On Sunday, other refugees were seeking help in Skopje, Macedonia.

Many arrived in Macedonia Saturday as village houses burned in the distant hills of Kosovo, giving accounts of Serbian assaults against ethnic Albanian civilians.

Some refugees told CNN's Chris Burns that police had ordered them to leave their homes within two hours or be killed.

Officials with NATO and U.S. military forces, which have conducted four days of airstrikes against military targets in Yugoslavia, reported similar but unconfirmed Serbian transgressions.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said there were unconfirmed reports that Yugoslav army and special police units were going door to door in north and central Kosovo, taking men from their homes.

A large part of Podujevo -- just north of Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital -- was reported burning, he said.

British Secretary of Defense George Robertson accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of cracking down harder on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"We have heard that some villages do not exist," Robertson said.

There has been no independent verification of those claims. And White House officials said surveillance flights failed to find evidence to support reports of a forced march of 15,000 to 20,000 civilians in central Kosovo.

Shea expressed concern over mounting reports of alleged Yugoslav military activities in Kosovo, particularly what he called sweep operations against Kosovo Liberation Army strongholds, and killing and looting of ethnic Albanians.

"We have heard reports that armed Serb civilians are blocking all access to Pristina. Within that city, there have been door-to-door operations in which men have been separated from their families and taken away to undisclosed destinations," he said.

Shea also mentioned a report of 20 ethnic Albanians killed in Goden.

According to the Human Rights Watch organization, a prominent Albanian human rights attorney and his two sons were killed just outside Pristina.

KLA leaders called for swift intervention by NATO ground troops to stop Serb attacks in Kosovo.

"The only language this (Yugoslav) regime understands is the language of force," said Jashar Salihu, a KLA political representative in Brussels.

In Berlin, KLA commander Ramush Hajredinaj said NATO ground troops are necessary to prevent "a true humanitarian catastrophe" in Kosovo.

NATO and U.S. officials say they have no plans to deploy ground forces in the conflict.

The movement of refugees has raised fears of longterm shifts and political problems in the Balkans.

Macedonians fear the influx will disrupt the fragile ethnic balance, particularly if ethnic Albanians of Kosovo unite with ethnic Albanians of Macedonia.

More than a quarter of a million people have been displaced by a year of fighting in Kosovo, and the number could more than double before the conflict ends, Taft said.

Correspondents Christiane Amanpour, Chris Burns, Matthew Chance, Patricia Kelly, and Andrea Koppel contributed to this report.