KOSOVANS FLEE AREA, FIGHTING BETWEEN SERB FORCES AND KLA GOES ON- ALBANIAN SOURCES

TIRANA, April 23 (Hina) - Albanian sources reported on Friday that Serbian forces had killed at least 42 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The Albanian state radio quoted the news agency of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as saying that Serbs massacred at least 23 people during operations near Lipljani west of Pristina and another 18 victims in the nearby village of Mali Ribar. There have been the dead in the village of Kraishta in the Lipljani municipality as well. Serbs have not yet allowed an investigation and the search on the ground, whereas unburied corpses are lying in fields, streets and woods. According to the same sources, the fate is uncertain of a dozen thousand refugees who left the Lipljani area in a column of about 200 tractors, several busses and a few hundred cars moving toward Albania. The KLA agency said almost 10,000 ethnic Albanians were trapped in forests of Varigoc and Zborac between Lipljani and Stimlje living in the open and without basic conditions. According to the Tirana-based Albanian radio, Serbian forces have been fiercely clashing with KLA fighters in the Rugova villages near Pec in vicinity to the Montenegrin border. The clashes killed six KLA fighters, whereas losses of the Serbian forces are bigger. The same radio quoted KLA sources as saying that seven Serbian policemen, including their commander Milutin Prascevic, were killed at Madam near Djakovica. (hina) jn ms