It was another cloudless night of bombs, another night of civilian deaths, another morning after, where fractured descriptions of chaos in rural communities reached the capital. Attempts to treat the injured in those communities were hampered by downed bridges and blasted roads.
Although Thursday night and yesterday saw much of Yugoslavia hammered by bombs, from north to south, the worst bombing in terms of civilian deaths occurred in Korisa, a village near the city of Prizren in the south of Kosovo.
The state news agency Tanjug reported that over 100 people were killed, mostly elderly women and children, as they slept in a warehouse or farm compound. A Yugoslav army spokesman said they feared that the death toll could reach 150. About 58 people were in hospital with injuries, and five were in critical condition.
According to reports from residents near the scene, some ethnic Albanian survivors said the raid occurred around midnight as about 500 people slept. Most of them were Albanian Kosovans who had been returning home after assurances from Serb forces that they were safe.
One of them, Mr Feriz Ametaj, told a reporter from AFP that at least 100 people had been killed. "Numerous burnt bodies have been evacuated since this morning in bags," he said. Other reports said three large bags of body parts had been removed.
The village of Korisa is 5 km north of the town of Prizren on the road to Suva Reka. Some 30 tractors, 20 of which were completely burnt, were still parked in the yard when an AFP reporter arrived in Korisa shortly after noon yesterday, according to the agency.
While there were reports of eight cluster bombs from the Media Centre in Pristina no eyewitness accounts could be obtained. The area around this part of the country has been reported to be the focus of fierce fighting between Serb forces and the KLA in recent days. Military sources here say that much of Kosovo is being divided into areas of strict Serb or KLA control. Areas along the western border, near Pec and Decani, just north of Prizen, are said to be under tight KLA control, and fighting is intense in the area. In cities outside Kosovo, bombing continued, with a lighter level of bombing in the suburbs of Belgrade, and no bombing in the downtown area.
Nis, the third-largest city with 250,000 people, was totally blacked out at 10.30 p.m. on Thursday. Lights were restored 90 minutes later.
Agencies report:
At the United Nations in New York, the US has rejected Chinese proposals for the UN Security Council to deplore NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. "We will not agree to deplore," the US ambassador, Mr Peter Burleigh, said. China has linked agreement on a draft statement, which would be the council's first formal response to the embassy attack, to adoption of a resolution on the humanitarian situation in Kosovo.
The Chinese ambassador, Mr Qin Huasun, said earlier yesterday: "We have got support of all members on our draft presidential statement except the United States, so now the ball is in the court of the United States."
A new diplomatic initiative aimed at resolving the Kosovo crisis using the offices of President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland appeared to pick up steam yesterday as Washington signalled its support for the mission.
The State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, said Mr Ahtisaari, Russia's special Kosovo envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, and the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Strobe Talbott, would meet in Helsinki on Tuesday to iron out details.
Four central European prime ministers criticised Yugoslavia yesterday for its treatment of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and urged Belgrade to comply with NATO's terms for ending the war.
Meeting in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia issued a statement saying they strongly condemned "the policy of repression, ethnic purges and violence against the civilian population in Kosovo by the Yugoslav military, police and paramilitary forces". Two Serbian town mayors, who are members of the opposition, urged Belgrade authorities yesterday to do everything possible to halt the NATO bombing.
Mr Zoran Zivkovic, mayor of the southern town of Nis, which has been heavily hit by the NATO raids, urged Belgrade to support the G8 nations' plan for Kosovo as a "basis for political solution" for the conflict. Mr Zivkovic is a senior official in the Democratic Party of Mr Zoran Djindjic.
Mr Velimir Ilic, mayor of Cacak, 160km south of Belgrade, where four people were killed and 13 injured in NATO air raids on Monday, called on the authorities to do "everything to stop the bombing". Mr Ilic is leader of the opposition Serbia-Together party.