The onset of winter is bringing Kosovo's refugees down from their mountain hiding places, but the humanitarian situation remains absolutely critical, non-governmental organisations warned yesterday.
Some quarter of a million people - or 10 per cent of the Serbian province's population - are estimated to have fled their homes over seven months of fighting which have seen Serbian security forces systemically raze ethnic Albanian villages to the ground.
Even assessing how many people are in the mountains and forests is a problem, and becoming more urgent with temperatures already down to 10 Celsius in the mountains.
Mr Josue Anselmo, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said groups of people displaced by the fighting frequently move around and, as a result, any evaluation of the numbers involved or their location is difficult.
A camp containing about 20,000 refugees was discovered near the village of Isnic three weeks ago, Mr Anselmo said. An ICRC team that visited the site on Saturday found no one there.
To further complicate the picture, the presence of humanitarian groups was scaled down after a Red Cross doctor was killed by a mine on September 30th. Subsequent threats of NATO air strikes saw all NGOs withdraw except the ICRC.
But one thing Mr Anselmo knows for sure is that the situation remains critical. In early September NGOs estimated there were about 50,000 people living outdoors.
"This figure is decreasing," according to a senior official for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the provincial capital, Pristina.
"We're assessing the numbers, but our estimation is that a certain number are getting shelter because it's getting cold," he said.
One representative of a humanitarian group said only a total pullout by Serbian police would end the crisis.
Traditional Albanian hospitality means that communities will take in outsiders and offer them shelter, as evidenced by farm buildings around the province which can house up to 100 people.
But there is only so much food to go around. The UNHCR says there are currently enough food supplies for 35,000. The ICRC is delivering 20 tonnes of aid a day.
A bigger problem is medical supplies, as instances of illness have risen sharply.
Emphasising how vulnerable the refugees are, Dr Tom Boucher, head of Medecins sans Frontieres in Kosovo, points out that many of them "fled last summer, without anything or with summer clothes".