Serbian Shelling Prompts Exodus in Kosovo, U.N. Says

Thousands of families streamed out of southwestern Kosovo in a chaotic exodus Wednesday, jamming dirt roads with tractors and wagons full of belongings as Serbian forces shelled their villages, a U.N. refugee official said.

Fernando del Mundo said as many as 25,000 civilians were fleeing their homes about 20 miles south of Pec, Kosovo’s second-largest city.

“They’re panicking and going everywhere, but they don’t know which way to go,” said Del Mundo, a spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “The shelling is closing in like [pincers].”

Del Mundo, who visited the area Wednesday, said he heard shelling as Serbian artillery apparently attacked five villages. He said the refugees had begun leaving during the preceding 24 hours and were continuing to pour out of their villages.

Tens of thousands of additional civilians remained dangerously close to the shelling and might also soon flee, he said, adding that the situation threatened to create as many as 25 ghost towns in southwestern Kosovo.

Aid workers have warned of an increasing humanitarian disaster in Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia, one of the two republics that make up Yugoslavia. Before Wednesday’s clashes, hundreds had been killed and more than 230,000 villagers forced to flee since Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched a crackdown in February against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.

Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs 9 to 1 in Kosovo.

In Washington on Wednesday, President Clinton released $20 million in aid for refugees in Kosovo, but a State Department official said no amount of aid will help unless the Serbian government allows secure access to the area.