By Mort Rosenblum, Associated Press, 04/15/99
MORINI, Albania - Dibran Asmani was riding the tractor convoy to deliverance, nearing Albania after three days on the road, when the world exploded in front of him. That was the last he saw of his family.
''Suddenly, there was a big blast, and I started running,'' the 80-year-old said, dazed and hunched over his cane. ''All I could think was, my God, NATO is bombing us. I ran through the field like a mouse. I'm ashamed, but I'm too old to lie about it.''
Like other refugees traveling in a convoy attacked Wednesday, he said he heard aircraft, and three bombs fell nearby. Two tractors towing wagons jammed with people were blown apart.
Today, NATO acknowledged mistakenly bombing the convoy, but blamed the Serbs for putting the refugees in harm's way. Yugoslavia says at least 64 people were killed and 20 wounded when the tractors were hit near the Serb army camp at Djakovica.
Asmani's wife and daughter were in the convoy, along with his daughter-in-law and three children.
''I don't know what happened to them,'' he said, tears rolling down his craggy face. ''They might be dead. I don't know.''
Shaban Hasanaj, 15, came along later in a column of thousands that fled toward the Albanian border on foot - three days and three nights, without food - and he saw the aftermath.
''I could see bodies without heads, tangled arms and legs,'' he said. ''Maybe there were 10 bodies there.''
Witnesses spoke in midnight darkness at this remote border crossing near Kukes against a backdrop of wailing and whimpering. Thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, with a few old men, waited for trucks to carry them to a transit camp.
''Please let our husbands know we are safe,'' Hyrijae Aliu pleaded to anyone within earshot, but she only knew that he was fighting in the mountains near their lost home at Izbic.
It was in Izbic, she and other refugees said, that Serbs killed at least 150 men on March 27, one of several recent massacres being reported by refugees expelled from their homes in a stepped-up campaign to rid Kosovo of Albanian blood.
With all international observers having left Kosovo province, there is no way to independently confirm the refugees' stories. Yugoslavia says they are fleeing NATO bombs.
Ylber Smokaj, 5, stood quietly with a determined look on his face. His mother, Elfiie, wept quietly. Nearby, a woman rocked the 2-year-old she had carried on the three-day march.
The latest refugee groups came from the Skenderaj region north of Pec, a Kosovo Liberation Army stronghold which had held out against the Serbs until recently when they say a fresh campaign of terror forced them to flee.
Remnants of the attacked convoy arrived late in the afternoon, followed by a separate group of several thousand, also on tractors with a few clapped-out cars. By early today, thousands more had come across on foot.
The last refugees staggered across like zombies, hobbling on injured feet and each holding the shoulders of the one in front.
''I don't know how we made it,'' said Lavde Kajtazi, 17, who walked out with her mother and grandmother after she says Serbs shot 37 men in their village of Klodernic. ''We had nothing to eat. It was freezing. But we are here.''
