Aid volunteer Rachel Duncan has spoken of her shock at conditions in strife-torn Kosovo.

She has just returned to Bradford from a trip to the region of the former Yugoslavia.

Miss Duncan and her colleagues Cameron Skinner and Dave Redhead were dismayed by the appalling conditions being endured by the two million Albanians who make up 90 per cent of the population of Kosovo.

The volunteers were stopped by Serbian police up to eight times a day during their mission to deliver cash to education and mining union officials in the Kosovan capital, Pristina.

In the past, convoys from Bradford have taken lorryloads of aid including medical equipment and other supplies to the region, but this time the campaigners were unable to get a visa for humanitarian aid and instead took £1,600 which had been collected by fundraisers.

Miss Duncan, who is a founder member of Bradford Aid for Kosova, which takes its name from the Albanian spelling of the region, said: "I wasn't scared at any point because you go out there knowing what you're letting yourself in for but I was totally stressed out. No wonder we were shot to pieces when we first got back.

"All the time you're there you feel you're being watched.

"We have it so easy here. We've never had to encounter something like this but have a responsibility to try to do something about it."

Mr Redhead, who was the driver for the trip, said: "You can hear about ethnic cleansing and read about it or see it on the television news but until you see the houses destroyed and with Serb nationalist slogans on them, you can't appreciate what it means.

Mr Skinner, who together with Miss Duncan, is a member of the 1 in 12 Club in Albion Street, which is being used as a base for the campaign, said the ethnic Albanians were living in constant fear.

The Bradford campaigners hope some of the money they took over will help provide a better education for ethnic Albanians.

Miss Duncan said she was particularly shocked at the way schools and the university in Pristina had been ransacked leaving students with no chairs and desks.

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