During NATO's bombing campaign, Yugoslav Army (VJ) units from Nis and Leskovac, Serbian police (MUP) units from Kraljevo and Pirot, Russian mercenaries, and volunteers from Serbia and Republika Srpska were stationed in Orahovac. Between 220 and 250 Albanian families were ordered out of Orahovac by the police and the Army. About 1,000 Muslims from Orahovac left town in fear. Sixty Albanians were mobilized by force. Twenty-five Albanians were in custody on 1998 charges of terrorism and subversive activity.. Russian soldiers stopped them at the Hotel Park and demanded DM40,000 from them. Alush gave them all he had -- DM17,300. They let him keep DM100 for his journey. According to Alush, they were stopped 20 meters away by police reservist Zoran Stanisic from Orahovac, who hit Vels and started beating them before their father's eyes. The father heard one of his sons beg: "Boza, don't. You know us." While he was returning to town, the father heard several gunshots. Five days later, he found their charred bodie

s in Bajram Shala's unfinished house 100 meters from the farm, near the checkpoint where they had been stopped by the police.

Xhulsime Shehu (58) was killed in her home on April 13. According to the testimony given by a witness (a member of the Shehu family), four policemen, two of whom were local Serb police reservists, entered the house. The witness heard a burst of automatic gunfire. After that, he saw two of the policemen come out of the house and start digging in the yard where the Shehu family had hidden DM70,000 in cash and DM20,000 worth of jewelryBelgrade about it. After KFOR's arrival, the mother found Hajdije's grave in the village of Bela Crkva, in the yard of Nuhi Kelmendi. According to Kelmendi, he found her body in his yard on June 1. She had been shot to death.

Four Serb policemen took Arben Derguti (28) from his home on April 29, and he has not been seen or heard from since. He was driven away in a red van with Pristina license plates. According to Derguti's family, the uniformed men in the van included policeman Nenad Dujovic from Velika Hoca, the Orahovac police deputy commander, a drunken reservist with an earring and policeman Stanoje Vidovi} (son of Budimir Vidovic) from Bosnia, who had been assigned to the Orahovac police station. The van was driven by a local Romany.

On May 3, three policemen killed biology teacher Elmaze Kadiri and her mother-in-law Nurisha, and then set their house on fire. Neighbors managed to put the fire out before it engulfed the entire house. The family concluded from Elmaze's broken teeth and cut-off pieces of her ears that she had been cruelly tortured before she was shot to death. Three days after the murder, the police ordered Elmaze's husband and children to leave the house and go to Albania.

The brothers Sulejman (45) and Nekija (62) Dema, and Nekija's wife Shefkije (54) disappeared on May 4. According to their family, Vekoslav Simi}, an Orahovac physician and friend of the Demas, came to Sulejman asking for his brothcal policeman, Bo`a Damjanovi}, entered it and ordered them to pack up and leave for Albania. The Abazibrasa's sister Iska, who visited her parents and sister on May 10. The victims were shot to death. It seems that plunder was the main motive for this massacre. DM400,000 worth of cash and gold was taken from their home.

Ajvazi Seram was in the home of a neighbor, Ismaild Hidayet and inflicted a serious stab wound on Lirije.

On June 12, Jonuz Hoxha (13) -- whose father was killed by Serb troops in July 1998 while fleeing Orahovac with a group of civilians -- was killed by one of the pressure-activated mines laid by retreating Russian volunteers who had stayed in Orahovac during NATO's bombing campaign.

KLA Violence in the Presence of KFOR

KFOR entered Orahovac on June 16, 1999. Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) troops entered the town ahead of the international forces. They immediately began searching Serb houses and taking people out of their homes. More than 40 Serbs had disappeared by July 10, and all of the Serbs from the houses and the 142 apartments in tholdiers stopped Stefan from searching the other rooms in their prison.

By the end of December 1999, KFOR had found the bodies of four Serbs who had gone missing in June. There is no information about the other kidnapped Serbs. The last abduction took place on January 3, 2000. On that day, Radivoje Lukic (25) left the Serb section of Orahovac for the center of the town while under the influence of alcohol. He never returned.

The OSCE Defends a Local KLA Commander

The abduction of five Serbs from Orahovac on October 29, 1999 revealed the fact that some Orahovac Serbs had already bought their way out of town with the help of a local Romany. The five Serbs -- one of whom was Zvezdan Mojsic, the son of Ilija Mojsic, a former investigating magistrate in Orahovac -- disappeared without trace in Djakovica, where they were to be received by ffices in Orahovac and Djakovica were ordered by UNMIK to investigate the abduction. Meanwhile, it was reported that the International Police had begun an investigation and that they were interviewing members of the family of the missing in Orahovac.

In Serbia, the displaced families of the missing asked the International Red Cross to establish contact with the abductd release Hoda and Oruqi in exchange for the release of Mojsic's son.

Hekuran Hoda replied to his imprishts protection mandate given to the OSCE, and that their work is under the control of local political and military groups.

In connection with the abduction of magistrate Mojsic's son: in December 1999, Serbian police stopped Silva Oruqi at the crossing to Serbia and took her in for questioning. She was on her way to Nis, where she had intended to visit her husband, the imprisoned Rexhep Oruqi. She was interrogated by policemen who had worked in Orahovac until the retreat of Serbian forces from Kosovo.

UNMIK had not revealed the results of its investigation as of mid-January 2000. In tn Stanisic, leader of the local unit of the Tigers paramilitary organization, whose commander was Zeljko "Arkan" Raznjatovic. By the end of 1999, a total of 14 Serbs from that list had been arrested. In December, they were transferred from the Prizren prison to the prison in Mitrovica.

According to the vast majority of local Albanians, all of the Serbs from Orahovac and the nearby village of Velika Hoca, both those who have fled and those who hhighest representatives, including chief administrator Bernard Kouchner, have always been careful to condemn every single murder of a Serb, Romany or Muslim, they have also always noted that the international community understands very well why a murder has been committed, calling on the perpetrators and the entire Albanian community to forgac, and of stlage between Orahovac and Velika Hoca. Djordje Simic, the police officer from whom Petrovic is said to have taken the official-issue pistol with which he killed Durguti, has been charged with attthe first to eighth grades, is the first social and cultural institution given to the Serbs.

The bus that now operates between Orahovac and Mitrovica once a week, with KFOR's help, allows Serbs to leave Orahovac unless they are on the list of alleged war criminals, and to return to their homes safely. The Orahovac Serbs have agreed, in the name of good will, that their delegation should visit prisons in Serbia and inform the Serbian public about this. Meanwhile, on January 5, the District Court in Po`arevac released 10 Orahovac Albanians who had spent 17 months in prison without trial.

The Serbs who are struggling to survive make no secret of the fact that Serb forces committed crimes against Orahovac Albanians. They do not hide their shame for the humiliation the Albanians were subjected to during NATO's bombing. The military and police authorities prohibited the Serbs from selling bread and flour to the Albanians. Many, however, did so secretly. Since then, the Orahovac Serbs have gathered at the Orthodox Church and demanded justice: "Let the law, equal for all, replace rumors and reports against alleged war criminals."