The Serbs' presence there is the main reason behind the Albanians' aversion to letting Russian troops deploy in the area. Dutch troops guard the ends of the streets with huge guns pointing outward. They are guarding the Serbs from attacks by vengeful Albanians, but they are also preventing them from leaving, to make sure that the war crimes suspects among them do not escape. Only a few Serbs are allowed to leave each day, taken out under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Inside the quarter, which the residents liken to a ghetto, there is a dispirited air, but also a lingering trace of menace.
People hang around the streets buying or selling a few vegetables or sweets.
Young men in track suits swagger along with nowhere to go. Older men sit on street corners and question strangers as to who they are and what they want. Colonel van Loon said there were dozens of suspected war criminals in the Serbian quarter and in a nearby Serbian village, Velika Hoca. The tension soared on Friday when Dutch troops received orders to hand over the sector to the Russians and move east to another area in central Kosovo. At the same time, they got the go-ahead to arrest three local Serbian leaders accused of war crimes, which they did without incident with the help of the German military police.