The only sound is the cawing of crows under a gray, gusty sky. Djakovica's scars are many. There was heavy fighting there last year between Serb forces and the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and another spasm of violence after NATO launched its air war. NATO bombs have ripped off the side of the regional police headquarters. Shops are shattered, looted, vandalized.
Broken glass litters the floors.
It is something you see almost everywhere now in Kosovo. Parts of Podujevo, north of Pristina, the provincial capital, are almost as silent and devastated. The army has mined the banks of the river where it runs through town to keep out rebel fighters. Pristina is a shadow of what it was two months ago. Once a multiethnic city of cafes, shops and streets that hummed with life, it is now a gloomy place where few people venture out.