Source: http://www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/kosovo98/index.htm
Accessed 09 April 1999

KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #24
KOSOVO REFUGEES DESCRIBE
"NIGHTS OF FEAR" IN BELANICE VILLAGE

(New York, April 8, 1999, 7:00pm EDT) — Refugees fleeing into
northern Albania described an atmosphere of utter terror in the
Kosovo village of Belanice, which was used by Yugoslav forces
as a gathering point for ethnic Albanians living in the Malishevo
district. Dozens of witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch
reported that they were robbed, threatened with death, suffered
physical deprivation, and that refugees were occasionally
murdered. On April 1, their ordeal in Belanice came to an abrupt
end, when they were forcibly expelled from the village toward the
Albanian border.

According to refugees, Serbian police and Yugoslav Army soldiers
forced some 50,000 villagers in the Malishevo and Suva Reka
region of south-west Kosovo to gather in Belanice village
beginning on or about March 26. The Yugoslav authorities forced
the dispersed rural inhabitants into Belanice by shelling their homes
or sending raiding parties into their villages. Villagers were
instructed by the authorities to flee towards Belanice, one of the
few villages in the area that had not been shelled. After spending
several days and nights in the central square of Belanice village,
the authorities drove the bulk of the refugees southwards towards
the Albanian border, telling them that they were no longer
welcome in Kosovo. After traveling in a slow-moving refugee
column for up to three days, many of the Belanice survivors
reached Kukes, a northern Albanian border down, on or about
April 4, where they were interviewed by a representative from
Human Rights Watch.

Refugees -- the bulk of whom were women, children and older
men -- said they were forced to gather in the Belanice central
square, where they were surrounded by Yugoslav security forces
who repeatedly and persistently ordered them to hand over their
money. Several witnesses recalled that Qemal Bytyci, a bus driver
from the village of Semetisht, was repeatedly ordered by Yugoslav
soldiers to search his passengers for money, which he then turned
over the to the surrounding troops. The bus was parked in
Belanice's central square for several days along with hundreds of
tractors and cars brought by the refugees. "After they had forced
him to search the passengers on three separate. occasions,"
recalled eighteen-year-old Shukrie Bytyci, "he could no longer find
any money in the bus. So they took him away and beat him so
badly that you could see the marks all over." Despairing of saving
his vehicle, the bus driver abandoned the bus to the police, who
then "drove all around the village, singing and shouting that they
had captured the bus," the witness recalled.

Other witnesses said that soldiers repeatedly and persistently
threatened them with death if they refused to hand over their
money. "The nights were full of terror," one elderly woman
recalled, "with the Serbs roaming around the square shooting in the
air and pulling out their knives to threaten you with death if you
didn't pay. We gave them everything, even the earrings in our ears
and the rings off our fingers." In many cases, refugees were
beaten and cut with knives if they refused to comply with demands
for money.

On occasion, the Serb forces also killed refugees in Belanice. On
April 1, for example, all refugees gathered in the town were
ordered to leave for Albania. Batisha Hoxha, seventy-two years
old, told Human Rights Watch that her husband, seventy-five-year
old Izet Hoxha, was shot dead on the afternoon of April 1 after
failing to join the mass flight. "He tried at first to leave when they
ordered us to clear out," she recalled, "but he then said he was too
old and tired to leave." After returning home, the elderly couple
was attacked by four security force personnel who broke in
through the front door. "My husband couldn't see who they were
at first," Mrs. Hoxha recalled, "and offered them cigarettes. One
of the soldiers knocked the pack from his hand, and then shot him
twice. The first bullet hit him in the arm; the second hit him in the
chest and killed him." Batisha Hoxha was then ordered to join the
other refugees in the central square, who were making
preparations to leave for Albania.

Dozens of witnesses who arrived in the northern Albanian town of
Kukes after traveling from Malishevo district to Albania through
Rahovec, Suva Reka, and Prizren said that most of the villages and
towns in south-western Kosovo had been burned down and are
empty of ethnic Albanian inhabitants. "Everywhere you go, you
only see burnt homes and Serbian police or army," one refugee
said. "All of Kosovo is empty of its people."

For further information contact:
Fred Abrahams: 1-917-293-3090
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838

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For further information about violations of human rights and
humanitarian law in Kosovo, see the Human Rights Watch website
at www.hrw.org on the "Crisis in Kosovo" page. To subscribe to
Kosovo Human Rights Flashes, send an E-mail to
donalds@hrw.org