They include the 3,500 people who have been living for weeks in a makeshift camp on the fringes of the village of Kisna Reka, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) West of Pristina, the provincial capital.

"Every night the Serbs fire on our houses," said Aziz Bajaraktari, a 45-year-old teacher, backed up by other men around. "Last night they shelled for two hours."

Armed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), whose bid for independence for the 90 percent Albanian-populated province triggered vicious Serb retaliation, are still much in evidence on the mountain tracks of the area.

They and the local inhabitants said the daily shelling caused neither damage nor casualties, but it belied claims by Belgrade that the military were withdrawing.

"People only return to their villages torecover a few possessions then they come back here," said a middle-aged man who gave his name as Sami and said he was in charge of the camp.

The refugees, including more than 200 infants, live beneath shelters erected on an area measuring 100 metres long and 50 wide, on both banks of a small river.

On Thursday, aid from the outside world arrived in the shape of a convoy of food and other goods despatched by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The men busied themselves unloading and carrying bags of flour and sugar, cooking oil and mattresses. The food would be enough to last three weeks, Sami said.

Meanwhile, in a tent bearing the inscription "Mbijetesa dhe Shkola" (Survive and Teach), some 50 children seated on the grass recited the alphabet.

Lower down, beside the river, women lit fires to cook a mixture of flour, water and fat known as "fli".

A typical "home" for a family of 11 from Mlecane, 20 kilometres West of Kisna Reka, consists of four thick branches over which wereslung blankets and plastic sheeting.

In a space measuring scarcely three square metres were placed all their possessions, a few blankets, clothes and a stove, a precious asset in the nights that are becoming progressively colder in these hills.

The refugees in Kisna Reka said they had no hope of an early solution to their problems, and no confidence in the promises of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic .

"Milosevic never keeps his word. Instead of withdrawing his troops he is just redeploying them," said one man.

Under heavy international pressure backed by a threat of NATO Air strikes which has not been lifted, Milosevic has begun complying with UN demands for a withdrawal of forces, the return of refugees, access for international relief agencies, and the start of political talks.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is also to send 2,000 monitors into Kosovo to verify if the compliance is real.

But teacher Bajaraktari was categoric: "These men, must have militarysupport, otherwise they can't be effective."