A NINE-week-old baby girl is the future of strife-torn Kosovo. The tiny tot was born in the mountains of the Balkans after her family was driven from their home.

Today his mum and dad, who have now settled in Blackburn, said they would not rest until Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was captured and brought to justice as a war criminal.

Bashkim Haziri, 39, his wife Suzan, baby Fortune, daughter Rrezelinda and son Alban are among the 138 refugees staying in two former Blackburn homes for the elderly after fleeing the nightmare of the Balkan war.

The family was among thousands driven out of their houses by paramilitary gunmen into the hills of southern Kosovo and across the border into Macedonia.

They were given two hours to leave by Serb forces sent in by Milosevic. As they left, their Serb neighbours, who they had lived with for many years, looked at them with their arms folded and laughed.

Suzan gave birth to a baby Fortune in mountains near their home town on April 3 - a fortnight after the NATO bombardment of Serbia started.

Bashkim and his family later returned to his home town only to be driven out once more by gunmen, followed by tanks which destroyed his home and those of other ethnic Albanians. He has lost touch with his parents - his father Shyqri had previously been the Mayor of Libjan in Kosovo - and does not know what fate befell them.

An English speaker who spent three years studying in London in the 1990s, Bashkim and his family managed to escape the terror of Kosovo on a train and ended up in the Bojana refugee camp in Macedonia.

They joined other refugees in the camp as part of the group who have ended up in Blackburn - Bashkim and his family are in Shadsworth House in Dunoon Drive, others are at Laneside, Mill Hill.

He said: "When my wife was giving birth in the mountains, without a doctor to help, we could hear the bombs below.

"She was traumatised and believed they were nearby and I had to re-assure her that we were safe.

"We are here now, but we have been through real terror. The children understand what has happened. My daughter Rrezlinda asked me one day if the Serbs were going to kill us. Now, suddenly, we are here in this beautiful place. "Of course Milosevic should be tried for war crimes. The world should not allow him to stay in power.

"We hear about the peace deal, but we find it hard to believe it. The British government, the Americans and other Europeans have done a lot for the people of Kosovo and we say thank you."

The 138 other refugees are also settling in to their new surroundings and trying to come to terms with what has happened.

The Blackburn refugees are the second group to come to East Lancashire, with a group of Kosovars already having been accommodated at the Calderstones Hospital complex in Whalley.

The appeal for goods for Kosovar Albanian refugees staying in East Lancashire has now ended. The appeal for good-quality clothing, toys and electrical goods was launched when it was announced they would be staying at Calderstones Hospital and the two former homes for the elderly in Blackburn.

The appeal has been coordinated by Lancashire County Council and items kept at Calderstones.

Lancashire County Council leader John West said: "The response to the appeal was tremendous.

"We were inundated with items. It was a real community effort."

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