After that, the family had kept moving, always trying to keep one step ahead of the security forces. “We came here after these had left,” he said, pointing to heavy tracks across the field, which the refugees said had been made by Serbian armoured vehicles.A single plastic sheet tied over some branches was the only shelter for the old man’s family. Like the family of the gravely ill woman, they would do anything rather than risk meeting the security forces.The bodies of three men caught by the police at a checkpoint were buried nearby, they said. The women of his family standing behind him were clothed in voluminous Turkish- style trousers which have been worn in this part of the world for hundreds of years.First, he said, the police had burnt his house in the village of Resnik. Sitting cross-legged in a field, Adem Bajraktaraj, 84, explained how his extended family of 13 had been on the move for the past three months.Mr Bajraktaraj was wearing a traditional Kosovar white felt skull cap and peasant sandals He lent on a gnarled walking stick as he spoke.

But even though she had been vomiting putrid yellow bile for some days, they were too scared to go through the police checkpoints.We used a satellite telephone to request a doctor serving with one of the international agencies A passing ITN crew brought medicines and rehydration salts. The cameraman thought it looked like a case of cholera he had once seen.Many more refugees were living out in the open. Her body was emaciated after weeks without proper food.
The refugees wanted to take her to the nearby town of Glogovac, where there was a doctor. A KOSOVO Albanian man with a look of desperation pushed his way through the crowd of refugees and said: “Quick, there’s a woman dying here. You’ve got to help.”

The woman was a mother of four who had drunk poisoned water after fleeing into the hills. Given shelter in a nearby house, she lay on the concrete floor under a blanket, rolling her eyes and moaning.

They may break with the current line-ups and form a coalition of their own at the expense of left and right-wing fringes.The complex situation is compounded by the fact that Mr Scalfaro’s seven- year presidential mandate ends next spring. In the six months before his term is up, the head of state cannot dissolve parliament.Until November, parties keen to avoid a general election will use the ploy of procrastinating over the formation of a new executive; others will press for a snap decision and elections this year.At 866 days, Mr Prodi’s government was the second-longest of the post- war period. It was the fifth during President Scalfaro’s term of office and the 54th since the end of the war.. It came after a tense morning in the packed Lower House during which MP Silvio Liotta, a member of the Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini’s Rinnovamento Italiano party, stunned the government ranks by announcing that he would defect to the centre-right opposition.Although early elections are now a possibility, President Scalfaro will consult party leaders to find a workable parliamentary majority before he resorts to dissolving the houses. Mr Prodi himself may be asked to patch together a wider-based coalition to push his cost-cutting 1999 budget through parliament and avert a return to the ballot box.A jubilant opposition, flushed with its unexpected victory, noisily renewed demands for a snap election after yesterday’s vote.