The Warehouse of the Humanitarion Organizations Burned

The City of Peja Is In Flames

Peja, March 26, 1999 -Through a phone call, received on March 26, 1999, 4:45 PM EST, we learned that the Serbian police, together with military and paramilitary troops started destroying Albanian houses by first taking all the valuables then setting the houses on fire in the city of Peja, Western Kosova.

The section of the city from "The School of Economics" on the east, to the center and the city bus was on fire while we were having the conversation.

The population is terrified. They are escaping any way they can in the nearby mountains and fields outside the city.

Our sources in Peja notified that there are bodies laying on the ground. They were noticed in the neighbourhood "Haxhi Zeka" and the "Fidanishte" neighbourhood.

I should add that huge detonations could also be heard on the background while we were on the phone.

One civilian dead and many others are wounded

Orllat, March 26 (Kosovapress)

During all day, Orllat village has been under serbian attacks and outcome of these attacks are: Sanije Krasniq 25 year old being killed, while Muharrem Syle Krasniqi, Zejnie Gashi are in critical state because of the wounds.There are olso many other people wounded, and among them there is also a 12 year old child Liridon Gashi from Orllat and many many others from villages of Cerovik, Negroc and Orllat.

Prishtina, March 26 (Kosovapress)

The serbian government today declared amnesty for many political prisoners. Many sources confirm that they were released conditionaly to go and fight in Kosova. Also, yesterday, the Serbian TV showed the internationally wanted criminal known as "Arkan" announcing his return to Kosova with "his Tigers". Arkan is wanted by Interpol for running different prostitution, drug smuggling rings and other crimes and illegal activities in western Europe. The war crimes tribunal in Hague is preparing the case against him as well.

Malishevo, March 26 (Kosovapress)

Serbian military is using military airplanes MIG, against albanian civilian population. Serbian criminal forces are making new bombardments in the Malisheva region.

Military and paramilitary forces are going into houses and killing people indiscriminately," said an aid worker from the town of Djakovica.

U.S. B-52 heavy bomber takes off from a British air base Friday. NATO aircraft moved to daylight attacks for the first time Friday, attacking targets near Belgrade.

BEOGRADE - NATO piled the pressure on Yugoslavia on Friday, launching its first daylight raid as western alarm grew at a reported harsh Serb crackdown on Kosova Albanians.

Meanwhile two Yugoslav MiG-29 warplanes were shot down in Bosnia after they apparently tried to fire on the NATO peacekeeping forces deployed there since 1995, a NATO spokesman said. The Bosnian forces are not directly involved in the Kosova conflict.

There were conflicting reports as to the whereabouts of The Yugoslav pilots. Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed NATO spokesman as saying both has been captured and were in NATO detention. The Associated Press quoted NATO spokesman Jamie Shea as saying peacekeepers were still searching for them.

The confrontation outside Yugoslav territory was a dangerous broadening of the showdown between the western alliance and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over Kosova.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy said in Ottawa that the Bosnia incursion could bring "severe consequences."

"It is a particularly provocative move that they would go into air space over Bosnia, which is clearly part of the Dayton accord, which is protected air space," Axworthy said.

About 1,300 Canadian soldiers are stationed in the northwest corner of Bosnia as part of the NATO stabilization force.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic denied the NATO report about the incursion into Bosnia, saying it was an invention of the alliance.

Meanwhile, as the missiles and bombs continued to fall on Yugoslavia, Belgrade showed no sign of bowing to NATO demands that it accept a western-backed peace plan for Kosova. The plan would grant widespread autonomy to Kosova’s ethnic Albanian majority and allow NATO-led peacekeepers into the war-torn southern Serbian province to police it.

Bombs struck suburbs of Belgrade in the first daylight raid after two nights of air attacks. Smoke rose over the southwestern skyline of the capital as waves of NATO warplanes took off from Italy’s Aviano airbase in the evening.

It was not immediately known if Canadian aircraft took part in Friday’s attacks. Four of the six Canadian CF-18 fighter-bombers based in Aviano had participated in bombing raids Wednesday and Thursday on Serbian targets.

On Friday two more CF-18s left CFB Cold Lake, Alta. to join their colleagues in Aviano. Once in Italy and familiarized with the Kosova crisis, the two CF-18s will rotate with two fighter-bombers already stationed there.

NATO, waging its first campaign against a sovereign state, has struck 50 targets in Yugoslavia in 400 sorties since the air war began Wednesday evening, spokesmen said.

As NATO blasted Yugoslav air defences and military bases, there were reports that Serb police and masked intruders were burning homes and shops and killing civilians in the province.

"Military and paramilitary forces are going into houses and killing people indiscriminately," said an aid worker from the town of Djakovica.

Women and children fleeing burning villages to Albania told a UN refugee agency that Serb forces had separated men from their families in the village of Goden and executed 20 of them.

The United States and the European Union both expressed alarm over the reports. In Washington, State Department spokesman James Rubin warned the U.S. was gathering evidence to prosecute Serb leaders and military commanders for war crimes.

Meanwhile, more cracks appeared in NATO solidarity over the raids, although U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted that NATO remained united behind the air strikes.

Greece, the alliance member traditionally closest to the Serbs and which has taken no direct part in the air assault, called Friday for a halt to the attacks and a return to political dialogue. Italy had earlier urged that the air strikes be kept brief.

Violence broke out at the U.S. embassy in Athens as thousands of anti-NATO demonstrators protested against the bombing raids. Anti-NATO demonstrations were also reported in Macedonia and Moskou on Friday.

In Skopje, police arrested scores of pro-Yugoslav demonstrators Friday when they tried to march on the U.S. Embassy in defiance of a ban on further protests against NATO air strikes. The ban was imposed after large demonstrations Thursday at several western embassies turned violent.