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Survivors grieve at the site of what Yugoslavia says was a NATO attack on a refugee convoy in southern Kosovo RELATED VIDEO Yugoslavia's president makes his first public appearance since NATO attacks began. CNN's Brent Sadler is in Belgrade. (April 14) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Satinder Bindra reports on the tension in villages along the Yugolsavia-Albanian border (April 14) Real 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Yugoslavia, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: The Kosovo refugees Protesting the NATO strikes Devastation of Kosovo capital The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO 'Several thousand' US reservists likely to be called up  MAPS Gen. Wesley Clark describes NATO air campaign

April 14, 1999
Web posted at: 4:22 p.m. EDT (2022 GMT)

In this story: No relief for homeless in Kosovo Refugees outside Kosovo doing better RELATED STORIES, SITES

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- As many as 75 people were killed and 25 were injured when NATO missiles hit two convoys of ethnic Albanians leaving western Kosovo on Wednesday, Serb authorities said.

In their report, the Serb authorities said one of the groups was made up of several thousand people on tractors and in cars on the road between Djakovica and Prizren.

NATO said it had attacked a military convoy on the same road but had not targeted civilians.

"NATO aircraft carried out controlled attacks on military vehicles near a highway bridge just east of Djakovica," NATO said in a statement. "The aircraft were fired on by anti-aircraft artillery and man portable surface-to-air missiles. The pilots state they attacked only military vehicles."

NATO's supreme commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, said he had received verbal reports that after the military convoy was struck, Serb troops got out and attacked civilians.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said he had unconfirmed reports from refugees that Yugoslav aircraft had been targeting civilian convoys. Bacon said NATO was investigating and could not yet verify those reports.

CNN's Brent Sadler reported that he had seen no evidence of the alleged NATO hit on the ethnic Albanians, but that Serb authorities said they would take journalists to the scene later.

Video shot by an Associated Press cameraman, in the presence of Serb officials who escorted him to the scene, showed bodies strewn along a rural road near what appeared to be a line of wagons pulled by tractors.

The body of a man lay in the rubble of a farm building. Two elderly men, both covered with blood, could be seen being loaded onto a wagon.

Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said despite reports of displaced ethnic Albanians facing dire conditions in the mountains of Kosovo, U.N. relief workers cannot return to the province without the deployment of international forces.

"Security assurance is the basic condition under which we can go back," Sadaka Ogata said.

Ogata said that she could not estimate the number of displaced people still in the Kosovo province.

"I know one thing," she added. "Those who are displaced are in very difficult conditions, probably hiding in the mountains, and getting food must be difficult. I don't know how many days, how many weeks, they can last."

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said NATO was studying "all possible alternatives" to get aid quickly to Kosovars uprooted from their homes but remaining in Kosovo.

Clark has said that parachuting aid to displaced people from lumbering NATO transport planes would be an invitation to Serb forces to shoot them down.

British officials said Wednesday there were new reports of mass rapes of ethnic Albanians by Serb forces in the village of Djakovica.

British Defense Secretary George Robertson said two indicted war crimes suspects from the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia were commanding and supplying units responsible for "massacring and raping" thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

He said Zeljko Raznjotovic, also known as Arkan, was scouting prisons for volunteers to join his unit in Kosovo.

Gen. Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army during the war in Bosnia, is commanding a "gang of paramilitaries" in Kosovo, Robertson said.

Refugees outside Kosovo doing better

Meanwhile, the situation in refugee camps outside Kosovo's borders has improved, Ogata said.

She said more than 500,000 people have left Kosovo since the NATO airstrikes began March 24, with 314,000 in Albania, 116,000 in Macedonia and 67,000 in Montenegro.

In addition, as many as 2,000 more refugees arrived in Macedonia by train on Wednesday, with another 2,000 expected.

NATO forces were in the process of turning over control of the camps in Macedonia to the UNHCR, Ogata said. NATO troops set up tent camps in Macedonia at the start of the refugee crisis.

On Wednesday, it launched Operation Allied Harbor, with the aim of using troops to stabilize the refugee situation in Albania.

"We want to do for Albania what we've done for Macedonia," Shea said. "We want to provide essential relief, build tent camps, distribute supplies and provide security."

He said many refugees in the Albanian border town of Kukes still do not have shelter.

NATO has deployed 33 helicopters in the Albanian capital of Tirana to shuttle food and supplies to Kukes, Shea said.

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