The Serbian policeman filled the room with bullets then lobbed a grenade among the wailing children

By Julius Strauss in Poklek

17 June 1999

THE last thing the 24 children and 30 adults gathered in the room would have seen was the overweight Serb policeman with short black hair and pale skin standing by the door.

Then he slammed the door and opened fire through it, splintering the wood and filling the room with flying lead. Many inside fell immediately.

When the door opened again, the policeman held a hand grenade. He lobbed it among the wailing victims. Then he fired a few more shots, stopped, switched magazines, and opened fire again.

Finally, he prodded some of those he thought might still be alive with his toe. If they grunted, they were shot. Then he left, satisfied that his work was completed.

He had killed 54 of the 60 people who were in the room - only six were still alive.

Half an hour after the massacre, the Serbs returned to burn the bodies. Five days later, they came back again to burn the parts that survived the first fire.

The mass killing in the small Kosovo village of Poklek was one of the most horrific in a catalogue of evil acts perpetrated by the Serbs.

Yesterday, two survivors agreed to be interviewed. And athough they had not met since the killing, their stories matched in almost every detail.

We visited the scene of the killing, still strewn with the splinters of tiny children's bones and the charred jewellery of incinerated women.

As we worked, relatives of one family brought out photographs.

One showed Shehide, 14, Naser, 12, and Ylber, nine, standing in front of the family Lada.

In another, Menduhije, 12, held her hand on the shoulder of her six-year-old brother Merim. Next to them stood Mirsad in a white American football shirt.

A third picture - the edges worn away and the colours ruined by water and sun - was of six-month-old Lirie lying in a traditional wooden crib.

All of these children died in that room on March 17.

Relatives at the scene yesterday were willing to help with their part of the story, though several choked back tears as they tried to talk.

Mehdi Retik, 34, who lost his mother, his wife and his three children, had made a neat, hand-written list of all the dead with their names and ages.

In broken German, he told how he had sneaked out of the hills one night to check on his family only to find the pile of scorched bones, metal buttons and jewellery distorted by fire.

Mehdi hid the bones in his clothes and took them back to the hills where he hid them away. He said: "When the day comes, I will need them for The Hague (War Crimes Tribunal). Then they will have a proper burial."

The house where the Albanians died is in a small hamlet on the edge of Poklek.

All the windows have been broken and the roofs burned by marauding Serbs.

Before killing the women and children, the police took Ymer and another man, Sinan Mucolli, shot them and threw their bodies down the well.

In the garden of the house, the clothes and belongings of the Mucolli family were scattered. There were brightly coloured women's skirts and shirts.

Inside the room where the murder was carried out, the floor was littered with human ashes, bone splinters and the scorched remains of wedding rings and pendants that the victims were wearing.

A woman's watch was encrusted in ash. A necklace was burned almost beyond recognition.

As Fadil Mucolli sifted through the metal pieces yesterday he picked out the watch and held it up.

Without emotion, he muttered: "This belonged to my mother." Then he picked up the necklace. "This belonged to my wife, Feride."

Hysen Klunar is a 57-year-old farmer whose arm bends sideways at his bandaged wrist where a bullet passed through it. He was among the massacre survivors.

Yesterday, he returned to the scene of the killing for the first time. He said: "When first the police came, they ordered us into the sitting room. The men were told to take off their jackets.

"The policemen were very calm. They didn't shout at all. Then they took Ymer and Sinan outside.

"There was a burst of gunfire. The children began to scream and the women began to cry. Sinan's daughter Emine began to wail, 'They killed my father'.

"When the first bullets came, we all fell to our knees. We knew we would die. Everybody began to cry. The noise was huge and we couldn't see for the smoke.

"I just held my head between my hands and waited for the end. Then the grenade came and a huge blast. Then the shooting again. He just wouldn't stop."

When the shooting finally ended, a second policeman called from the garden: "Okay, enough, let's go."

The first replied: "One minute, I still have two or three to finish off." There were more shots, then he left.

Hysen said: "When he finally went outside, I didn't dare move. I just listened. I felt a growing throbbing in my wrist and the smoke slowly began to clear.

"Bodies were everywhere. I saw a friend nearby and just touched him to show I was alive.

"A woman asked what we should do. I told her to keep quiet. Then, slowly, we all got ourselves together and ran for the mountains."

Elhane Muqolli is a tough-looking 14-year-old girl with broken front teeth. Her survival was even more remarkable.

Hit in the ankle, she threw herself through a window 10ft to the ground. As she landed she almost fainted from the pain but managed to hobble off and hide behind the house. She broke down repeatedly yesterday as she told her story for the first time.

She said: "We had been trying to get out of the area all day but the police kept sending us back. They said it was safe to return to Poklek. We finally came back to the house at 5pm soaking wet.

"I was in the room when the hand grenade was thrown. Everybody began to scream and the room was full of smoke. I just jumped through the window and then ran. Somehow I got away."

The villagers say they have no idea who the policeman was - witnesses just said he was in his mid thirties.

But locals have begun collecting a list of names of policemen known to have been operating in the area. And they hope one day to catch the man responsible. Elhane may be able to help. She said: "I will never forget the face of the man that did this."