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ORAHOVAC - It is a four-hour trip from Pristina to Orahovac, located about 40 km from the capital of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, where about 3,000 Serbs live surrounded by ethnic Albanians.
The town's northern part is the only place where Serbs enjoy freedom of movement. They moved here after the deployment of German troops of the international force KFOR. After torchings of 120 houses and 200 apartments, 1,200 Serbs moved into northern Orahovac.
Serbs are isolated here, surrounded by ethnic Albanians who erected barricades on all roads leading to the town on Aug 23. Ethnic Albanians are preventing the deployment of Russian paecekeepers in this town. The deployment was agreed and approved at the highest military levels.
Schools do not work, so that children join adults in their walk along the central street, which is about 500 m long, eagerly awaiting any news from Serbia proper or other parts of Kosovo and Metohija.
Vendors of cigarettes, coffee, plum brandy, and, rarely, some vegetable stalls, can be seen in the street.
Stores have been closed for a long time.
Serb farms have been taken over by ethnic Albanians, who picked the vineyards, walnuts, all the crops.
The water supply is cut for a week at a time. There are occasional shortages of electricity.
The only available radio frequencies are for Deutsche Welle and Radio Montenegro, for which citizens of Orahovac had no words of praise.
"That alleged truth of theirs is more difficult for us than our reality," said several men standing in the street by a vendor. They had rallied around the reporter to hear news from Serbia proper and to send greetings to relatives, to "let them know we are still alive."
There are no doctors, and the town ran out of medicines long ago.
Many would like to send their children to stay with relatives in Serbia proper, to keep them safe, but none of those who come to visit dare take on such a responsibility.
Dutch troops man a checkpoint, making lists of all those who enter Orahovac. Only these people can leave. Anyone else has to address the UNHCR, and they can leave only pending UNHCR verification and approval.
Three kilometers from this checkpoint is a camp of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organization which calls itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Albeit without any arms or uniforms, they carefully control all those who pass. It is impossible to make this trip without KFOR escort. Those who had not entered Orahovac with the group pleaded in vain to be allowed to leave. They had to go back.