KOSOVO: SERB FORCES CONTINUE BURNING ETHIC ALBANIAN VILLAGES

(2 Sep 1998) Albanian/Nat

As the violence in Kosovo continues unabated, villages are still being burnt to the ground on a daily basis.

Ethnic Albanians are fleeing the violence, giving up their homes to become refugees rather than face more attacks.

One such village is Semetishte, once home to about 15-hundred ethnic Albanians, and now virtually desolate after shelling on Friday killed one person.

In war-torn Kosovo, scenes such as these have quickly become commonplace.

Villages, only months before thriving agricultural centres, are now nothing more than ghost towns.

Serb forces have completely destroyed 150 of the village's 170 homes.

It is a story which has been repeated throughout this troubled southern Serbian province, the main republic in Yugoslavia.

One person was killed in the shelling here, which lasted for nearly five hours on Friday.

The village primary school, which once had 12-hundred pupils, seemed to be one of the main targets - not even the walls were left standing.

SOUNDBITE: (Albanian)
"They shelled the village and we all ran away. Then we saw smoke coming from the village, they were burning our houses. They burnt them one by one. Before doing that they took everything they could. I have nothing left now - only the clothes I'm wearing."
SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop, Local student

The few villagers left are preparing to leave.

After gathering up their possessions, they will start the journey towards the mountains on the south-eastern border with Albania.

Hundreds have died and estimated 265-thousand people have become refugees in six months of fighting between government troops and Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas.

Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs 9-to-1 in Kosovo.

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