And still they come, bearing bad tidings. The flow of refugees into Macedonia has begun to increase again, after a lull that followed the initial massive influx through the Blace crossing from Kosovo two weeks ago.
At dusk yesterday refugees from a convoy of 11 buses were being fed at the Brazda camp. They were brought there from the Jazince crossing where most of them had arrived earlier.
The tales they were telling have become more gruesome. Ahrim, who did not wish his surname to be used, is from the village of Vate in the Kacinick area. Last Tuesday he found the bodies of four neighbours near the village. The men had been shot and their bodies mutilated. One man's eyes had been removed.
Accompanying Ahrim was Ebip Ligama, whose nephew was among the four men killed. Another one of the dead was the local doctor.
Ebip said they buried the bodies after a funeral for 11 victims of Serb violence. Ahrim said that he, his wife and six children, aged 19 to five, had spent a week hiding in the mountains after their village had been cleared out by the Serbs. He said he did not know how they survived. "Only God knows".
They came to the Jazince crossing by tractor and slept in the no-man's-land area overnight after the Serbs took all their money and the tractor.
Ebip, aged 66, said his nephew had been killed while trying to escape Serb forces who had surrounded him. He had also spent some time in the mountains before coming to Macedonia and now only wanted to go home again but couldn't see how. The Serbs had destroyed his house. Islam Berida, aged 27, was a teacher in the Kacinick area before leaving Kosovo. He said last night that 14 men had been shot by the Serbs in a town called Slatina and that two or three villages in the area had been cleared out. Commenting on reports that Serbs had killed more than 60 people in Kacinick last Sunday, he said it was possible that over 60 were killed but certainly 40 were dead there.
Accompanying Islam to Brazda were his wife and four children, two sisters, his parents and his brother-in-law, Ruzhdi Berida (31), whose wife and children are in Albania. Islam said most of the young men in the area had to stay behind in the hills and in their homes but he had had to leave because of the children.
Along with all the members of his own village of Glovocica, he had spent a week in the mountains before coming to Macedonia. It was very cold at night, he said, and very difficult, with little to eat. Everybody had been afraid.
They had come to Jazince in a convoy of tractors and cars. He agreed very much with the NATO bombing and said that although it may have accelerated the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, that would have happened anyway.
Schaban Banoga (38) owned an electronics shop in Urocvacz, also known as Ferizag in Albania. It had been taken over by the Serbs. The police had told him to get out. Many other houses in the area had been burned and some were taken over by the police as a base.
He also explained that many armed Serb civilians with masks had gone into Albanian areas shouting and shooting after the NATO bombing started. He said this was to produce panic among the Albanians. They also took all their food.
He and his wife and four children were turned back at the Blace crossing on Thursday by the Serbs when they wouldn't give them money. They went to Jazince crossing, where they had to pay money and their tractors were taken.
Ibish Buglici said the Serb army had gone to his village of Grlica and others in the area, damaging Albanian houses and breaking their windows. After this his wife and children went into the mountains. There had been no killing, but he had seen some people wounded, most of them after the Serbs fired into people's houses.
Shoban Vuglici (65) a retired building construction worker, said he and his family had been burned out of their houses in the village of Gnilane-Crnica before he and his family decided to leave Kosovo. Fetiu Hoxha (24) had arrived at Brazda with 10 family members, including his grandfather, Tasin (84), and they were hoping to make contact with other relatives at Brazda. Fetiu said his father was in Germany and had no knowledge of where they were.
At a press conference yesterday in Skopje the UNHCR spokesman, Ron Redmond, said 118,400 refugees were in Macedonia and more than 12,142 had been evacuated to other countries already. It was proposed to build three more refugees camps in Macedonia.
Of the refugees in Macedonia, 78,000 are staying with families and 40,000 are in camps. In recent days the UNHCR has speculated that up to 50,000 displaced Kosovans may be heading for the Macedonian border.