Tuesday, March 30, 1999
On Monday night, my parents' home in Pristina was filled with strangers. They had come from Dragodan, the Albanian section of town, desperately seeking a safe place to spend the night. That afternoon the police had entered each of the approximately 600 houses in their neighborhood and expelled everyone. It all happened in just two hours.
The police came in and cleared everything out. Armed men wearing black masks and blue police-helmets just came to residents' doors and said, "You have to leave."
The same thing happened in the Taslixhe section of the city. I watched through my window to see people fleeing their homes. They left all their possessions behind -- they weren't even allowed to take their identification cards. All they had was the sadness in their eyes. Their well-known pride seemed to have been destroyed.
Four families came into the building where my family lives. At first, they were afraid; they didn't know if they would find Serbs or Albanians in the building. But as they met one Albanian, and then another and another, they realized they had found people who would help them.
My mother gave them some water to help calm them down, and then some tea and coffee. They were embarrassed to ask if they could sleep at our house. There are now five families living in our small apartment.
All night long, they stood at the window, looking back at their homes, expecting to see flames. But their homes weren't set on fire. In fact, it was a relatively quiet night -- just one early-morning NATO air attack and a few explosions. Of course, there was also the regular sound of gunfire in the streets, but no one pays attention to that anymore.
In the morning, the families tried to return to their homes, but they were prevented by the police. I heard later that day that my friend and colleague, Baton Haxhiu, editor of the Albanian-language daily Koha Ditore, had been killed. He was an excellent journalist, which is probably why he was killed. What hurts the most is that I had told his family he was in a safe place and that they shouldn't worry. Now I feel such guilt. Thank God his parents' telephone isn't working so I cannot reach them. I hope it was a quick death; perhaps a single bullet to the head. I hope he wasn't beaten; that horrifies me.
[Ed. Note: On Thursday, April 1, the U.S. media reported that Baton Haxhiu and politician Fehmi Agani, another ethnic Albanian leader believed to have been executed, were in fact still alive.]
No one expected it would be this bad. Even though we knew there would be retaliations once the war began, we thought it would mostly happen in the remote villages. No one dreamed Pristina would be like this. The television shows pictures of the refugees that have left. At least they have survived and might return some day. But what about us, the ones that remain? Pristina has become a camp.
Some 300 vehicles filled with people left Pristina this morning. They organized themselves and decided to escape, heading south for Macedonia. Who knows if they will make it there safely? But they were desperate to leave and get as far away as possible from the situation here. Those of us who remain feel there is a price to be paid for Kosovo. We feel that leaving is only helping the Serbs succeed in their goal to empty Kosovo of Albanians. The only question is, who will make it through to the end?
The situation was bad yesterday. Today it is even worse. What will it be tomorrow?
Thursday, April 1, 1999 By Monday the neighborhoods of Dragodan and Taslixhe, both entirely Albanian, had been emptied. Now the Serbs are breaking into almost every house in Dragodan and destroying them. And they are doing the same thing in Taslixhe. Vrenjvc, the last neighborhood on the outskirts of the road to Belgrade, was emptied yesterday. I have no information about looting; it appears to be simply destruction.
The streets are different. We used to have heavy firing at night, but not so much during the day. Now there is shooting all of the time, day and night. It's not fighting, just shooting in all directions. Everyone is shooting outside. It is going on now. I also saw a few jeeps on the streets taken from the UNHCR warehouse.
Only women dare go outside. The men are too vulnerable. But there were no shops open and nothing to buy. Already we started using the food that we had set aside as reserves.
I speak to a journalist friend abroad many times a day. We laugh and tell jokes. I ask him to tell me about anything. But my editor is crazy. I tell him about events and tragedies, and all he wants is a story. But no one else will write. No one else is around. Everyone is in hiding and I have no information about where or how they are. We have no leaders now. It is just us.
I spoke with doctors over the telephone who told me that they could not confirm how many bullets were in the body of the prominent ethnic Albanian lawyer Bayram Keljmendi. That's because, as they said, there were "bad and deep signs of maltreatment." That's what frightens me. I am not afraid that someone will come and kill me, as long as it will be a quick death. Nowadays, only living scares me to death.
My friends from Belgrade and elsewhere are calling me, telling me to leave. God, I want to get out of here. I can't stand it. But I won't leave until I have rock-solid guarantees, a document stating that I am allowed to pass and that we can get through. There was a big convoy that left from the city for the Macedonian border. But we hear that they haven't been allowed through yet.
Postscript from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting:
At noon, the family is told to leave. The dispatch cannot be finished. There is only time to write one more e-mail to London:
Subject: NO STORY -- sorry. We have been ordered to leave the apartment. We're going NOW; I don't know where ... Pray for me, and I'll call you when or as soon as I can, but as for now, it seems that I will have the status of the people that came some days ago to my house. Goodbye.
Shortly after the family departs, IWPR calls Pristina from London:
"Is [the correspondent] there?" we ask. He had to go.
"When do you expect him to come back?"
I don't think he's ever coming back, comes the response.
Later, the correspondent finds a telephone, and reports that the family has been moved, but he cannot say where or how. Plans have been made to risk the journey to the Macedonian border. He plans to call upon connections with the Skopje government to try to ensure that they can cross to safety.
There are reports of "concentration camps" near Pristina. But an Albanian journalist on the outside tells our correspondent that "they won't kill you if you are leaving Pristina; they just want you to leave." It seems that the sister of a friend has a car, so if they can link up, and find some money for bribes along the way, they can make it, he says.
"It is time to go." 
