Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs who had fled alongside the army yesterday began heading back, forming a slow, southbound convoy of buses, tractors and cars. They were heeding an appeal from the Yugoslav government, which says the province might be lost to the nation if its Serb minority does not remain. They were led by government ministers and politicians.
But many of those who fled last week torched their homes and any possessions they could not carry. For some who did not, vengeful ethnic Albanian neighbours are doing it for them, hoping to ensure the Serbs never return.
A Reuters television crew arriving in Delovce, a nearly deserted village near Prizren, found six Serb houses ablaze and a group of young men calmly setting fire to a seventh.
A group of lost Serb military trucks returning to Kosovo from Serbia to pick up equipment was detained for four hours at the northern border crossing of Merdare manned by British forces. French soldiers at another crossing had given the trucks permission to enter. After consultations at the highest military level the convoy was allowed to pass with a British escort.