A group of people from one of the war's worst-hit towns, Djkovica, marched through Pristina, the provincial capital of Kosovo, yesterday, protesting at the lack of action being taken to find their male relatives, who they believe are being held in Serbian jails.
As they assembled outside the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, (ICRC) their posters in English read: "ICRC You Must Help Us" and "Where are the 1,500 hostages?"
Although the number of people in Serbian jails is still unclear, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, who visited Pristina on Wednesday, said the total could be as high as 5,000. From the town of Djkovica alone, protesters claim there are 1,500 missing and they believe the authorities should be able to get lists of names of those being held throughout Serbia.
Hope for the families of the missing was boosted by the release of 166 men last Friday. The ICRC was informed and it was asked by the Serb authorities to provide their transport out of Serbia.
However, the ICRC says that although they are in discussions with Belgrade and hope to have a full list of people detained soon, they have no real bargaining power to secure their release. Ms Monique Crettol, the ICRC's protection co-ordinator, said yesterday: "There is nothing in the [peace] agreement about the release of prisoners. There is no specific reference to it, so there is no basis upon which to ask for their release. This is a really big problem."
But with news that German Kfor troops discovered a new mass grave with more than 100 bodies in the village of Nogovac, southern Kosovo, yesterday, the uncertainty of not knowing the fate of relatives is causing great strain.
On the streets of Pristina, people cried yesterday as they held up pictures of their husbands, sons and cousins. Some had lost just one family member but others had lost more.
Ms Sutkije Guta lost six relatives. "They put 12 men together, they split them up into two groups and then took away six," she says.
According to eye-witnesses in Djkovica, the Serb military systematically targeted young males when they carried out their campaign of mass evictions over five days between May 7th and 12th.
One protester, Mr Vasar Dobruna, described how his brother, Burim, was singled out and pulled out of their car on May 11th as the family were driving out of town after being evicted.
"It was a terrible moment when they took him away. I don't know why, I don't know. Perhaps it was because he was young and had his hair cut very short, he looked like a soldier, but he wasn't. He was innocent," he said. Others missing are those who were being held in prisons and were transported to Serbia once NATO began its bombing campaign, presumably as potential hostages.
Another protester, Mr Agim Mecini, said he knows his brother, who had been in prison for a year in Mitrovice, in northern Kosovo, was taken to Serbia but he doesn't know where.
A well-known Pristina lawyer, Mr Zivojin Joilanovic, a Serb who through his special contacts with lawyers and prison governors inside Serbia has been acting for relatives, says prisoners rounded up in the town of Istok in Kosovo were similarly transported. While he is still trying to establish the whereabouts of some clients, he has managed to find some 150 people to date.
"The Serb Ministry of Justice has let it be known that they will be released in an organised way," Mr Joilanovic says. He is confident the Red Cross will also be given new lists of names in the coming days.
But on the prospects of prisoners being released, Mr Joilanovic says: "The law doesn't function in this context. However, the main point is that authorities in charge of jails have shown that they are willing to help."
About 400 pacifist and communist demonstrators yesterday tried to prevent the unloading of five NATO jeeps bound for Kfor peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, police in the Greek port town of Patras said. The crowd chanted anti-NATO slogans as the freighter arrived from Italy with its NATO cargo.