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 Updated at 10:55 AM on March 29, 1999

Baton Haxhiu, Editor-in-Chief of Koha Ditore, the Daily Newspaper Executed by Serbian Police

Baton Haxhiu, editor-in-chief of Koha Ditore, the biggest Albanian daily newspaper in Kosova was executed today in Prishtina by the Serbian police.  The newspaper's publisher Veton Surroi as well as the President of Kosova have gone into hiding to escape from Serbian execution.  Serbian police is going door-to-door in the capital of Prishtina and killing the Albanian intelligencia.  The capital of Prishtina is in total anarchy and desperately needs help if a genocide against the Albanian population is to be avoided.

Teki Dervishi, a Prominent Albanian Writer Executed by Serbian Police

Teki Dervishi, a prominent Albanian writer was executed by Serbian Police today in Prishtina according to Zeri i Kombit, a radio station based on phone conversations from Kosova.

Emergency aid from the air asked for the civilian population in Kosova

Drenica, March 29, 1999(Kosovapress) The population all over the Kosova territory is faced up with a catastrophic situation as a result of the Serb attacks with all military means and weapons and of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Belgrade fascist army. All over the territory of Kosova population displacements are taking place. This situation is further aggravated knowing that in the midst of the displaced Albanian civilian population are old people, pregnant women, children, and sick and disabled people. Health wise the situation is very serious, as there are no drugs and medication available. As if all this were not enough, the masses of the displaced people lack the essential food. It is the children who are suffering the most for they have been without any food for several days. It is for this reason that we are appealing to all world humanitarian organizations to all European and other governments, in particular to that of the United States, to extend their friendly hand to the massacred and suffering people of Kosova, by sending emergency aid from the air because this is an extremely alarming and emergent situation.

Serbian Forces are Killing Civilians With No Mercy

Shtime, March 29 (Kosovapress) From the beginnig of the NATO airstrikes, serbian forces placed in Kodren e Geshtenjave, nearby Shtime, during the night are placing their tanks in the streets of this town. Meanwhile, albanian population has been forced to leave from their houses. Last thursday, serbian paramilitary forces have shot the houses in the both sides of the road Shtimje-Prishtine. The attack has gone on from 20.oo-22.oo in hte evening.During this attack many houses are geing burnt.

Prishtinė, March 29 (Kosovapress) In Prishtinė, the conditions are grave. Frightening population, forced by serbian forces, has start to get displaced from many quarters. In Keēollė, serbian military has attacked with tanks and heavy altillery this village. Units of KLA have respond to this attack. Serbian terrorists have done bombardments in the quarter of Prishtina nearby hospital. It is strange that all these attacks are made during the night.

Gjakovė, March 29 (Kosovapress) Grave situation is all around the city of Gjakoves.In this city serbian terrorists are continuity burning , killing, stealing albanian houses. Last night, the set on fire the quarter of Qarshise se Madhe in this town. The fear is that there are many executed people.

Kaēanik, March 29th (Kosovapress) Terror is prevailing in Kaēanik's commmune. The serbian Ēetnice forces are burning the albanian houses. These criminal forces are massacring civil albanians. Up to now there are reports on these executed civilians: Florim Shaip Dema, Agim Dema with his son Fatmir, Xhevat Bushi and Rexhep Bushi. About two thousand women and children have gone away to Macedonia. These runaway persons have indicated a lot of massacres in villages and in the town of Kaēanik.

Serbian military and criminal police does not respect even the holiness of the churchs

Peja, March 29 (Kosovapress) Yesterday,serbian police and military terrorist forces extracted by using force and by maltreating, over than 200 albanian civilians, from the albanian Catholic Church of Peja. The 200 civilians were placed in the church, thinking that they will be safe there, that serbian police is not going to disturb them, but it didn`t happen to be like this, they were extracted and forced to leave in the direction of Rozhaja. These civilians were inhabitans of the quarter of Hospital,Peja, who found accomodation in the albanian Catholic Church, which is in the center of Peja. While, in this town, many quarters have been burnt and pillaged, and as result the city is already without any resident. While, serbian assassinatory police is placed in the houses of albanians to avoid NATO airstrikes. Also, the sebian soldiers of Peja barracks, are placed in the albanian empty houses,now.

Polulation being expelled, and instead of them, criminals placed

Vushtrri, March 29 (Kosovapress) Serbian assassinatory military-police forces,by using force are pushing to leave,all civil albanians, by beating and maltreating. And, after they finish expelling all of them, then they accommodate theirself there, in order to avoid NATO airstrikes second phase.

Babush of Muhagjers is attacked with minelaunch

Shtimje, March 29 (Kosovapress) According to the confirmed informations, last night about 23.00 o`clock, from the serbian positions of Babush, Babush of Muhagjers, commune of Ferizaj, has been attacked by minelaunchers. During this attack, the young man, 16th Arton Rexhep Rexhepi was killed, while Ymer Selmani, Adem Selmani and Avni Selmani of the same family and Shyqyri Berisha, all civilians, are being wounded.

Names of the massacrated family of Rama, executed in the village of Shkabaj, are confirmed

Prishtina, March 29 (Kosovapress) In relation with the news released by our Agency, about the execution of Rama family, in Shkabaj village nearby Prishtina, caused by one sebian terrorist exepedition, we get the confirmations about these people being massacred: Ismet Rama, with his sons: Agron Rama, Albert Rama, Xhevat Rama and his daughters: Syzana Rama, (seventh class), Shqipe Rama (third class), Xheladin Rama and his wife Hamide Rama, and also a friend of Xheladin whi was guest at his house, was killed too, Bejtush Rama and his son.

Air help is requested to save the population of the villages of Drenica

Drenica, March 29th (Kosovapress) Since March 24th, when the serbian soldiery offensive started in the territory of central Drenica, respectively in the villages of Baice, Arberi e Eperme dhe Ulet, Terdevc, Cerovik, Plloqice, Murg, Mlleqan, Gollubovc, Gjergjice, Negrovc, and Vucak, the population of these villages is situated in the village of Terdevc, in Gryka e Lluqakut and in Kroi i Vaut under the open sky without food and minimum living conditions. It is worth mentioning that this population sheltered in mountalins, is in a full siege from the paramilitary serbian forces, and there is no information about the fate of these 20 thousand inhabitants. Therefore, an urgent intervention is requested to save this population. The population is gathered in the villages of Strubollove, Ēikatove te Re, Gllogovc, Korrotice as well as in Zabel i Ulet. The number of the members sheltered in a single house reaches even the amount of 200 persons. In Karroticė tė Epėrme, the criminals have gathered the population in the primay school and afterwards have given them the order to go towards the mountains in direction of Poklek. The criminals have entered and have demolished and burnt all the houses. The police is still placed in Karrotinė tė Epėrme.

The locations of the serbian police in Drenica

Drenica, Mars 29th (Kosovapress) According to exact sources of information, the terrorist serbian police is positioned in these places: In the school of Krajkova, in the village of Domanek, in the quarter of Demiraj, in Baice of Gllogovc, in the Generator of Gllogovc, in the middle school of Gllogovc and in the primary school in Zabel i Ulėt.

Embattled Albanians Flee Kosovo

By George Jahn Associated Press Writer Monday, March 29, 1999; 8:59 a.m. EST

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- NATO bombs pounded Yugoslavia for a sixth day as thousands of ethnic Albanians fearing Serb paramilitary forces streamed out of Kosovo today in what may be Europe's worst humanitarian disaster since World War II.

A leading ethnic Albanian leader, Fehmi Agani, was executed Sunday, NATO officials said today. Agani, a key figure considered a moderate in the leadership, was returning from a funeral and was one of the negotiators at the failed Rambouillet peace talks.

NATO said refugees were arriving at the Albanian border at the rate of 4,000 an hour today, straining the already desperate resources of one of Europe's poorest countries.

The Albanian prime minister appealed today to his countrymen to take in the refugees, most of whom were carrying their only possessions by hand and some without even identity documents -- taken away, the refugees said, by Serb authorities at the border.

``It's almost as if their identities are being canceled out,'' NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said today at a news briefing in Brussels, Belgium.

About 60,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees have arrived in northern Albania, double the rate of a few days earlier, the U.N. relief agency said today. Thousands more headed west to Montenegro and southeast to Macedonia.

``Are you American?'' Nejmije Kelmendi, 50, asked an Associated Press photographer as she trudged up a steep mountain road near Pec in southwestern Kosovo, accompanied by her two daughters. ``Tell NATO that Pec is burning, and where are the ground troops?''

NATO seemed to back up that statement, saying today that Pec was ``substantially destroyed.''

Yugoslav officials were defiant, saying NATO's ``shameful'' attacks were only inflaming the ethnic crisis in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian rebels have been fighting for independence the past 13 months from Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic.

NATO's assault is aimed at getting President Slobodan Milosevic to accept a peace plan that calls for 28,000 troops in Kosovo, including 4,000 Americans.

President Clinton, on his way to Camp David, was asked whether he believed the air strikes were aggravating repression in Kosovo, he replied, ``Absolutely not.''

``The continued brutality and repression of the Serb forces further underscores the need for NATO to persevere,'' the president said.

Asked today whether the NATO mission was succeeding, Shea said: ``Yes, we are being effective. Yes, the mission is working.''

Meanwhile, Russia's prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, announced plans to go to Belgrade on Tuesday in a new bid to end the Kosovo crisis. Russia, which has cultural and historic ties to Serbia, has strongly opposed NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia.

Early today, Allied warplanes targeted mobile Serb units in Kosovo and cruise missiles launched from U.S. ships in the Adriatic joined in the barrage. Air raid sirens sounded again in the Yugoslav capital at mid-morning.

Serbian state-run television repeatedly showed video of a raging fire in the center of Kosovo's capital of Pristina that it said was set off by a NATO missile attack on a police building.

Rather than restraining the Serbs, however, the attacks appeared only to have intensified their anger at the ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people inhabitants.

``The pattern that emerges (from their accounts) is paramilitary forces arriving, rounding people up and telling them at gunpoint to go,'' said spokesman Kris Janowsky of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. ``So we are seeing officially sanctioned ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population in Kosovo.''

Early today, Yugoslav authorities closed at least one crossing point into Albania, erecting concrete barriers along the main road from the Kosovo city of Prizren to the Albania town of Kukes. It was unclear if other crossing points were also sealed.

Along Kosovo's border with Yugoslavia's smaller republic of Montenegro, thousands of Kosovo Albanians were trying to cross today. Police were charging $60 per car to allow refugees to cross.

A 24-year-old refugee from the Suva Reka area of southern Kosovo, Jeton Vranovski, told a reporter in Albania that when NATO airstrikes began, Serb police ``came to our village and told us to go to America, go to NATO and they will help you.''

NATO spokesman Shea said Sunday that the situation was on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster, unprecedented since World War II. More than 500,000 Kosovars are now displaced from the crisis, NATO said -- the biggest population shift in Europe since 1945.

But Bratislava Morina, the Serb refugee commissioner, called such accusations propaganda.

``There is no humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo whatsoever,'' she said on state-run Serbian television. ``The fact is that some Albanians are leaving their home in the regions where NATO is attacking civilian targets, also because some of their leaders left the country and went abroad.''

Belgrade has not announced casualty estimates, although Yugoslav U.N. envoy Vladislav Jovanovic claimed Friday that hundreds of civilians had been killed.

Russia's defense minister reported 1,000 civilians dead but it was impossible under current conditions to independently confirm any of the casualty figures.

The latest round of airstrikes began when about 50 warplanes took off from the NATO air base in Aviano, Italy, late Sunday. Among them were British Harrier jets, who returned to Italy after successfully hitting Serb targets even though they came under heavy anti-aircraft fire, said spokesman Group Captain Ian Travers Smith.

The independent Beta news agency, quoting Serb TV, said six missiles hit the Pristina area, after which ``Albanian terrorists'' in the northern part of the town began a fierce attack on the police. The report said three missiles hit the center of the city.

The Tanjug state news agency reported that NATO missiles targeting Djakovica in western Kosovo hit an army barracks and also damaged ``many civilian buildings'' including a Catholic church.

NATO: Albanian Negotiator Executed

By Jeffrey Ulbrich Associated Press Writer Monday, March 29, 1999; 9:19 a.m. EST

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - NATO said Monday it had reliable reports that Fehmi Agani, a prominent ethnic Albanian political leader and one of the negotiators at the Rambouillet and Paris peace talks, has been executed by Serb forces in Kosovo.

Air Commodore David Wilby, briefing reporters at NATO headquarters, said Agani, a close adviser to ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, was executed Sunday. Agani had reportedly just attended the funeral of Bajram Kelmendi, a human rights lawyer who was taken from his home and killed on Thursday.

Wilby said four other prominent ethnic Albanians were reported executed on Sunday, including Baton Haxhiu, editor-in-chief of the Albanian-language newspaper in Pristina, Koha Ditore.

The newspaper's publisher, Veton Surroi, and Rugova both have gone into hiding, NATO officials report.

At the daily NATO briefing, spokesman Jamie Shea also said air attacks on Yugoslavia were effective. He denied the bombing was responsible for an increase in Serb violence in Kosovo.

``We're on plan, we are on timetable and we are on target,'' Shea told reporters at NATO headquarters.

He said it appeared the Serb offensive in the province was intensifying long before the present campaign started.

NATO's assault is aimed at getting Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to accept a peace plan that calls for 28,000 troops in Kosovo.

Air Commodore David Wilby, briefing reporters at NATO headquarters, said the airstrikes had hit one Yugoslav MiG jet, one small Super Galeb plane and helicopters on the ground.

The NATO raids are intended to force Milosevic to agree to a peace deal that calls for NATO troops to be based in Kosovo to keep the peace. The deal has already been accepted by the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

But Milosevic has rejected the plan, saying he does not want foreign troops on Yugoslav soil.