ITN has obtained an extraordinary and shocking insight into life
  in Kosovo, six months after the end of the war. Despite an ongoing international aid effort, and
 despite the presence of thousands of KFOR troops, there is still widespread suffering.

  There are three major problems:

  The first is that - for some - aid is not getting through. That is a crucial consideration because
  winter has set in, and many families are still living in tents.

  Second, there is still considerable tension between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, and some Serbs
  are forced to rely on armed peacekeeping troops for their survival.

  And third is the fact that thousands of men, forcibly taken away by Serb
  troops, are still unaccounted for.

  ITN correspondent Mark Austin, who reported on the war in Kosovo,
  returned six months on to the capital Pristina, and to some of the province's
  remotest areas.

           Kosovo is in the grip of the first snow of a bleak Balkan winter.  Like hundreds of
  thousands of Albanian refugees the Sedeu  family is back home, but in truth it is no home at all.
  In temperatures below freezing even the most basic chores are a struggle

  These people were promised fuel and materials to rebuild their ruined house
  but six months on and in this - and many other villages - no help has arrived.

  The UN relief operation is bogged down by disorganisation and delay.

  Nato forces are being asked to join in the aid distribution - tracked military
  vehicles often the only means to reach the more remote areas.

  It is slow going. For the aid           
  agencies here it is a race against
  time and a race they are losing.

  It is clearly going to take a long
  time to rebuild Kosovo, and as
  winter sets in there is already
  patience among the people here
  for the United Nations to do more
  and to do it quickly.

  The West may have won the war - is it now in danger of squandering the
  peace.

  It is a question worth asking because six months on Kosovo remains
  dangerous and divided.

              In one town barbed wire still separates Albanians from the few Serbs left - Serbs who in
  Pristina count increasingly on round the clock protection of British troops. Last week and elderly
  Serb couple were shot dead in their apartment. Albanian gunmen are blamed.

  They have also threatened other Serbs, including Sonny Brzera - a young
  single mother, who lives with her baby Jack and eight-year-old son Ivan.

  They have only ventured out four times in five months.

  When we were there Ivan made the trip to school for the first time since the
  war ended.

  It was an extraordinary operation: he and twenty-five other Serb children
  were gathered together by armed soldiers.

  They were herded into armoured
  landrovers for the ten mile journey
  to a Serb enclave.

  It is a frightening way to go to school but for Serb children in Pristina it is the only way.

  "Constant fear for the Serbs.
  They're actually frightened to step foot outside their houses now. Young Ivan for instance has
  been in his house now for three months. The only time he gets to go out is when a K-FOR
  soldier takes him," Sergeant Dicky Bird from the Royal Green Jackets told ITN.

  These are the lengths they have to go to to ensure the safety of Serb
  schoolchildren in Pristina.

  Six months on and Tony Blair's declared aim of a multi-ethnic Kosovo is
  simply a world away.

  In fields across the province lie the anti-tank mines intended for NATO's
  invasion force.

          A ground invasion never happened of course but the mines  remain, hidden now more than ever by the winter snow. Albanian women have joined the de-mining teams but this is a job that will take years.

 And for thousands of women here it is the war with no end. Six months on their husbands are still missing.

  Pranvera Sharani doesn't know whether her husband and five other men from
  her family are dead or languishing in Serb prisons.

  "We just want to know. We cry every day," she told me.

  Her neighbour is also missing her husband.

  On the eve of the new millennium this remains a desperate place.