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Forced from their homes, threatened and abused by the Serbian police, they are being herded into trains destined for the Macedonian border.
They leave behind a country and a way of life which they may never see again.
Forced out of the carriages two miles from the border, these ethnic Albanians were robbed of their last meagre possessions, stripped of their documents and ordered to walk the rest of the way to Macedonia.
They have gathered in an open field just outside Kosovo. Safe now from the Serbian police, but destitute and homeless.
They told us in their own words of the harrowing experiences of the last few days.
'I thought I saw death'
One woman said: "It was very cold and all around us there were a lot of policemen. They were shouting all around us. We were very very scared.
![[ image: width=150]](/olmedia/310000/images/_310092_refugee150.jpg)
"Then at two o'clock we were in the train. So many people it was difficult to survive. Very difficult. I thought I saw death with my eyes."
One man added: "There's not one man in Pristina. It's finished - people in Pristina. Just litter."
And another refugee told us: "The police came to our houses and told us to get out. They said they'd kill us if we didn't leave. They beat up my son. We've come here without money or possessions."
Catastrophe in the making
A humanitarian catastrophe is in the making here, the scale of which is only just beginning to be understood. Sanitation is non-existent, children are weak and starving, the elderly barely have the strength to go on.
And their number continues to grow. Not a stream now but a flood.
Ethnic cleansing on this scale has not been witnessed in Europe since the Second World War. These refugees may never see their homes again.
The Kosovo Albanians are being driven into history.
Country profiles
Doubts over Milosevic-Rugova meeting
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
'Ethnic cleansing at its most brutal'
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
UN warns of Kosovo emergency
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
Analysis: Nato presses on
(01 Apr 99 | Kosovo)
Arkan: 'I'm not going to hide'
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
America wakes to US PoWs
(01 Apr 99 | Americas)
Serbs capture US soldiers
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
Milosevic 'meets' Albanian leader
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
Yeltsin demands G8 Kosovo meeting
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
Doubt cast on Nato reports
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
POWs: Advice and rights
(01 Apr 99 | Europe)
Fleeing Kosovo: Images of the refugee crisis
(31 Mar 99 | Europe)
Serbia limits news of bomb damage
(31 Mar 99 | Monitoring)
Ground troops: Why Nato says no
(30 Mar 99 | Kosovo)
Analysis: Will the conflict spread?
(30 Mar 99 | Kosovo)
Serbian Ministry of Information
Kosova Press
OSCE
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
International Crisis Group
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Nato
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