The fate of up to 2,000 refugees turned back into Kosovo at the Macedonian border yesterday remains unknown. The packed train, which pulled into the Serb side at around 9 a.m., disgorged just 10 documented people who had come to Macedonia to collect their pensions. Inexplicably, it then stood at the station for more than two hours before departing.
As aid workers at Blace attempted to find out why the rest of the passengers were not being allowed to disembark, continuous explosions thought to be mortar fire were audible behind the nearby Kosovan hills.
Serb forces have been known to play "games" like this in the past. Refugees packed onto Blacebound trains - for which, farcically, they are forced to buy return tickets - have been shunted back and forth at stations while armed Serbs fired shots in the air. This time, however, the distant explosions - "fairly substantial" and unusually protracted, according to a UNHCR spokesman - lent a more sinister air to proceedings.
Given that the flow of refugees into neighbouring Montenegro and Albania has also been virtually halted, the focus is on Serb motives for trying to keep them within Kosovo. One theory is that the Serbs need a certain critical mass of Albanians to remain, as "a shield against anger", in the words of one observer. If the country is emptied of all but Serbs, according to this theory, it becomes a clear, unambiguous target for NATO.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to accumulate of food shortages and increasing desperation for the ethnic Albanians who remain.
In some areas, they are allowed out only between the hours of 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. to buy food. As Serb shopkeepers often refuse to serve them, many appear to be living on a diet of cooked flour and sugar. Others - especially those with small children - are said to be living in cellars, too fearful to venture out or to attempt to catch the trains. Those who do try to catch the trains are confronted daily with hysterical crowds and an air of panic. A few pensioners who disembarked from yesterday's only train talked of desperate scenes at Urosevac as thousands of people tried to cram into five carriages.
The only ethnic Albanian refugee to make it across at Blace yesterday was a passport-holder called Besa Pajaziti, a 23-year-old psychology student from Pristina. She was delivered by Mercedes to an emotional reunion with her brother before speaking passionately, in English, of the plight of the Kosovan Albanians. She claimed to have witnessed the shooting dead of a 58-year-old man, whose only crime was to look for directions, and that she herself had been held for two days by police but released unharmed.
"I have a message for the UN," she declared. "People are dying, there is no food, there is nothing. Have mercy. They must do something. They should not have mercy on the Serbs when they are killing us, killing children. They are treating us like animals. I would beg NATO to bomb them more . . . We belong to the land. I won't be happy until we get our country."
As she climbed into the back of another gleaming Mercedes, her brother called out to the media - "See you in Pristina - in a week, with the help of the KLA." From inside the car, came her last dramatic words: "Help Albanian people - please help."
No one doubted that she was a genuine refugee or that she had probably paid a substantial amount of money to get to the border. But to some of those present, it all seemed rather rehearsed. One Kosovan scoffed at the notion. "She comes from a rich family. You think this is KLA propaganda? I can tell you the KLA haven't even the money to buy weapons, never mind to buy such propaganda."