One civilian died there because his injuries could not be treated, said a reliable source who asked not to be identified. Two others have become paralysed because they were not treated immediately.Refugees have begun to pour out of the area. The UN refugee agency says up to 2,000 have fled for protection to neighbouring Serbia, the country once the chief persecutor of Albanians.. In March 1999, as the Nato bombs rained on Serbia, a meeting was held in secret at Slobodan Milosevic's office in Belgrade.
The former Yugoslav leader had summoned Vlajko Stojiljkovic, a close friend who was then Serbian Interior Minister and who, like his master, has been indicted for war crimes in Kosovo. In March 1999, as the Nato bombs rained on Serbia, a meeting was held in secret at Slobodan Milosevic's office in Belgrade. The former Yugoslav leader had summoned Vlajko Stojiljkovic, a close friend who was then Serbian Interior Minister and who, like his master, has been indicted for war crimes in Kosovo.At that meeting, it seems Mr Milosevic had already acknowledged he might one day face charges of war crimes committed in Kosovo. He had learnt his lesson from the unearthed mass graves from the earlier wars in Croatia and Bosnia. He ordered Mr Stojiljkovic to get rid of the evidence, the bodies of his victims.As many as 10,000 Albanians are thought to have been murdered by Mr Milosevic's security forces in Kosovo during the 1999 Nato air campaign But more than half of their bodies have never been found. Only 4,000 corpses have been discovered nobody has ever found traces of the others.
In a matter of a few months, thousands of people simply vanished from the face of the earth.The bodies are the evidence the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague needs to prove its charge of crimes against humanity against Mr Milosevic. Yesterday, for the first time, the story of how they disappeared began to be officially revealed.Dragan Karleusa, a Serbian Interior Ministry official, said yesterday: "Slobodan Milosevic ordered Vlajko Stojiljkovic to take measures to remove all the traces that could lead to the evidence on crimes that have been committed." Mr Stojiljkovic then issued orders to two police generals, Vlastimir Djordjevic and Dragan Ilic, to begin the operation of "removing civilian victims, who could become the subject of the eventual investigation by The Hague tribunal", Mr Karleusa said.The Independent first reported the crucial evidence which led Serbian police to discover Mr Milosevic's cover-up three weeks ago, on 4 May. Then, it emerged for the first time that a refrigerator truck full of bodies had been dredged from the river Danube. It is believed the 50 bodies inside, many of them women and children, were of people murdered by Mr Milosevic's security forces in Kosovo.Back in March 1999 as Mr Milosevic and Mr Stojiljkovic plotted to get rid of the bodies at their Belgrade meeting, witnesses saw 130 people being killed by Serbian security forces in the village of Izbice in Kosovo Their bodies were seen being buried in the local cemetery.
