Refugees in Kosovo Flood Rebel Village

Hundreds of refugees fleeing fighting in the north of Serbia’s Kosovo province crowded into a rebel stronghold Saturday and rummaged for firewood to help get through another subfreezing night.

Most of the refugees in the area west of Podujevo made their way by foot to Lapastica, a village still held by the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, after a two-day crackdown by Serbian police and Yugoslav army units.

The rebels want independence for Kosovo from Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia. Ethnic Albanians make up 90% of the province’s population.

In a typical scene in Lapastica, one room sheltered more than 60 refugees.

One 7-year-old boy, identified only as Agron, had been walking for hours in the cold and, his teeth chattering, couldn’t speak a word.

His father lamented the family’s situation.

“It’s a shame that we have to beg for food and beds,” said the man, who refused to give his name. The only warm member of the family of four appeared to be the youngest, a 3-month-old girl bundled in wool and asleep in a wooden cradle carried by her father.

Others in and near Lapastica combed the surroundings in the winter sun for firewood.

Several villages in the region were destroyed in the two days of fierce fighting that threatened to unravel an already shaky truce reached Oct. 12.

The province was reported to be largely calm Saturday, but a Serbian farmer was killed west of Podujevo by the KLA, according to international peace monitors. Ethnic Albanian sources reported a police attack in the same region.

The farmer was killed by the KLA in his home in Obranca, 20 miles north of the province’s capital, Pristina. The rebel force controls much of the area.

The Kosovo Information Center, close to ethnic Albanian pro-independence leaders, said that shortly before noon, Serbian police approached Obranca and opened fire on nearby KLA positions.

The U.S., France and the European Union have warned both sides not to continue the violence.