The Balkan Mess

In Balkan culture, grown men don't cry. Yet Rexhep Pajazitaj, 63, cried as he sat in a hut near the village of Golubovac in Kosovo. Three months ago, the Serbs destroyed his native hamlet to drive out ethnic separatists. Now Pajazitaj, 17 members of his family and most of his former neighbors live in a rough camp, too terrified to go home. "We thought we would be back home in a week or two, but the police are still everywhere," he says. "Now we're almost out of food, and I don't think the children will survive the winter."

His plight is...