The village was named after thermal water (the literal translation would be 'Spas'), and there still exist several springs in Banje, the water of which keeps eight millstones in motion. The village of Banje, being secured by French members of the KFOR, is surrounded by barbed wire. There are no electricity, no medical doctors, no shops or bus lines - these Serbs are living in a kind of concentration camp.

The residents of Banje have not been able to leave their village for the past three years. The live off the aid they get from the International Committee of the Red Cross and from the French soldiers.

"We sometimes go on foot over Mokra Gora (a nearby mountain), by mountain paths to Zubin Potok to buy coffee and cigarettes", recounts Rade Kovacevic, a representative of the village, emphasizing that "not even those paths are safe".

"We move safely only within two or three kilometers of parameter, and we can go no further without the French soldiers' escort", says Kovacevic, adding that the ethnic Albanian terrorists have murdered four and wounded eight Serb peasants in the past nine months, in spite of the presence of the French soldiers.

Stating a few cases of Serbs being murdered or wounded, Kovacevic said that the Ethnic Albanian terrorists had last year murdered seventy-two-year-old Damjan Kovacevic while he was guarding cows in the field, not far from his house. His three years' younger brother Milosav Kovacevic was severely wounded. He is now an invalid.

The ethnic Albanian terrorists murdered Momir Kovacevic on September 1st last year, on the road between the villages of Crkolez and Suvo Grlo, which is secured by Spanish KFOR soldiers. Milutin and Darko Kovacevic were then also wounded, remembers their cousin Rade Kovacevic.

Cut off from the outside world, the Serbs of Banje - as Momir Jokic told the newspaper reporters - "came across" Serb newspapers twice in the past nine months. "Even though they were old and the news were dated completely, they were a dear gift to us", says Jokic.

We once heard it on the Free Europe Radio that we were to be spoken for in some Albanian government by a monk, Sava Janjic, by Rada Trajkovic and by some guy called Randjel Nojkic, along with two other people, who were supposed to be from Kosovo and Metohija. We were never visited by these people, they never saw how the encamped Serbs are getting along, let alone did they ask our approval", comment the embittered Serbs of Banje the decision of a group of Serbs from Gracanica to enter the Kouchner-Thaci government.

They emphasize that they are only visited by Oliver Ivanovic of the Serb National Forum (SNF) of the region of Kosovska Mitrovica.

"He came here with a civilian administrator for the municipality of Srbica, and after having 'whined' for two months with the help of Professor Mitra Jokic from Kosovska Mitrovica, he secured the reopening of the school, so that our children would not go uneducated. Ivanovic came to share our joy at reopening the school, as well as our sadness at seeing our cousins, friends, neighbours getting killed, along with several terrorist attacks on the village", recount the villagers of Banje.

Twenty-four students are attending classes at the primary school, which has been placed in the building of the local infirmary since October last, says Physical Education teacher Darko Ristic and adds that only nine students are attending school in the nearby village of Suvo Grlo.

Teacher Ljiljana Vukovic, who had come to Banje from Srbica after the Yugoslav Army and Police had withdrawn, says that there are seven students attending the basic education, representing a combination of the first, second, third and fourth grades.

First-grade schoolgirl Danijela Jokic says that she is a model student, and so does the teacher's daughter Biljana Vukovic, who told the reporters that she had been "exiled from Srbica by ethnic Albanians", and that she had watched her house burn, after it had been - as she put it - "set fire to by the ethnic Albanian neighbour."

The village of Banje has fourteen high-school students, who have stayed at home this year because of the insecurity and non-existence of bus lines from the village to Kosovska Mitrovica. It was agreed upon with the directives of the Kosovska Mitrovica high schools that they are going to pass their exams in June this year - so Grade School Principal Mitra Jokic, who had until recently been retired, told us.

At the end of our visit to the village of Banje, the residents gathered around the village church, which had been built in the XIII century - in order to bid goodbye to their unexpected guests, the way Serbs are supposed to do, saying that they are staying in their centuries-old homes.

The Serb National Forum of the Kosovska Mitrovica region and the group of reporters was driven to Banje in armoured transporters by French KFOR soldiers.

Ivanovic today visited the village of Banje to inform the residents, among other things, of his conversation with the Commander of the multinational 'North' brigade, General Pierre D'Sacki D'Sane, concerning the transport from Banje to Kosovska Mitrovica and back, at least once a week. He reported the General's approval of the idea to the villagers, but also that it is first necessary that the Serbs of the village should submit a written request to General D'Sane.