Life Has a Dull, Harrowing Edge in Belgrade

With bombs falling a bit closer Saturday, life’s choices here are narrowing to a joyless few: Hide in bomb shelters. Watch propaganda on TV. Stay outside and watch the destruction.

Most people stay at home, sequestered in apartments or bomb shelters out of fear of NATO’s air raids.

Radomir Mirkovic said Saturday that he spent the night chain-smoking on the corner of his street as missiles struck several targets on the outskirts of the city. His wife and newborn child were in an air raid shelter two houses down the street.

“It’s like doomsday,” he said.

Iron screens cover most of Belgrade’s 19th century storefronts, and customers stay away from the tables and chairs set up outside their favorite coffeehouses.

Even the suburbs have changed. Police and military units patrol the outlying Batajnica section, where modest one-family homes share space with a large military airport. Olive-green trucks with radio equipment are parked in the middle of pastureland.

For the last decade, Belgrade residents were spectators to the regional wars between Serbs and other ethnic groups, following them on television, radio or in the newspapers.

But after the people endured 10 years of poverty and isolation because of Serbian rebellions elsewhere and the sanctions those moves provoked, the airstrikes appear to be squeezing the last bit of spirit from the Serbian and Yugoslav capital.

“I just can’t take any more,” said Mira, 38, a tall woman whose face was etched with deep lines. “I don’t care who’s at fault for these attacks--us, the Albanians, NATO--I just want things to return to normal.”

In an interview with Serbian television late Saturday, a Yugoslav pilot who was shot down last week said he faced insurmountable odds: his MIG-29 against 24 North Atlantic Treaty Organization planes.

Air Force Maj. Nebojsa Nikolic, whose first name translates roughly into “Fearless,” said he had been forced to bail out when his plane burst into flames.

“I received the signal to take off very quickly, and without thinking I took the aircraft up and flew toward the odious enemy. I knew that I was going toward those who had appeared in great numbers in our skies, but I went to defend them anyway, not thinking about their strength.”

Nikolic said he dodged three missiles fired at him but was hit by a fourth and had to eject.

“The enemy vultures circled over me, trying to spot me. They also fired at me,” Nikolic said.