Serb units forced civilians from the city of Pec to head for Prizren at the same time that Nato bombing started on 24 March.

Prizren appears to have been the initial destination for refugees fleeing the North before becoming a target for mass expulsions itself on or after Thursday 29 April.

By 1 May an operation had begun to clear the city. The operation in the city appears to have been less violent than the reported indiscriminate killings in villages on the Djakovica-Prizren road, though no less brutal.

Serb paramilitary police are said to have entered the town at dawn, possibly on Thursday 29 April and, using megaphones, ordered the inhabitants to leave for Albania, just 15 minutes away by car.

An estimated 23,000 crossed the border before a suspected change in policy on 2 May when Serb units started preventing women and children from leaving.

War crimes investigators are looking for evidence that Kosovo Albanian men were tortured in detention centres in the area.

Related story: Kosovo's 'second city cleansed'