Kosovo/Kosova As Seen, As Told A 32-year-old man described how in another village the inhabitants were forced to gather around an empty house by some paramilitaries. The paramilitaries picked out the women from the crowd and pushed them into a house nearby and screams were heard from the inside. They stayed there for an hour. 9 In the convoys. While travelling in convoys between villages or to the border, young women would often be targeted by surrounding Serbian forces. Women would be taken out from the convoy; sometimes they would be returned but in other cases they were never heard of again. One man described how 10-15 police took his niece away from a convoy in Pristina in April. As the family tried to get her back, the paramilitaries fired their weapons into the air and sent the family away as the young woman was taken into a nearby building. Half an hour later, she was released and she told her family she had been raped. She had been injured in the groin and later it was discovered she had become pregnant 10 because of the rape. A 28-year-old woman tells how she herself was raped together with her cousin as they were going in a convoy from Glogovica/Gllogovc to Pristina. She added that there were many rapes 11 on this route. Thirty young women were seen being taken off tractors in another convoy in Pristina. There is no further information on their fate, but the women had been threatened with rape as they were 12 being taken away. A 36-year-old man described how the convoy he was in was stopped on the way to Pristina by paramilitaries. Young men, and women who were found attractive, were separated from the 13 group; the fate of the women is unknown. As a group of 2,000-3,000 people walked towards Albania, in the area west of Djakovica/Gjakova, Serbian police took "several hundred" women to the woods for a 14 period of about one hour. As recounted by the interviewee: "This went on the whole night." While walking to Albania, one interviewee described how the Serbian police stabbed young girls in their legs. Girls and young women who were found attractive were taken away and were still missing at the time when the statement was taken. 15 In the home. Rapes occurring in women's homes were not as frequently reported as those in the circumstances described in the examples above. Sometimes the paramilitaries would apparently quite randomly enter houses and take away and rape the young girls who were there. It is mentioned in several statements that the Serbian forces would ask for young women while entering houses to evict and rob people. A 28-year-old woman described how four paramilitaries entered her apartment and pointed their weapons at her. They raped her and beat her severely all over the body, while her mother was held in the 16 next room. A 20-year-old man saw how four paramilitaries went into his neighbour's house and took three of the neighbour's daughters and his daughter-in-law. The women were blindfolded and put into a car. While one paramilitary stayed with the women, the other three demanded money of the neighbour and then beat him, his wife and son for not having any. The four women (still blindfolded) were taken to 17 another village from where they returned the next morning at 07:00. Patterns http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch7.htm (6 of 17)12/5/2003 11:51:55 AM