"In a place where your neighbors burn your houses, there can be no survival," he said last week, fighting back tears as he sat in the corner of a factory in Rozaje, Montenegro, where some 50,000 displaced Kosovars passed through last week. His daughter was propped nearby, with no food and little hope.

For the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians like Audaja who desperately fled their homes last week--traversing miles of winding mountain roads afoot or on tractors or atop mules--the world seemed to have come apart. By week's end, according to the U.N., more than 300,000 refugees had crossed into neighboring Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro since the bombing campaign began on March 24. On Saturday, nato spokesman Jamie Shea said at least 200,000 to 300,000 more Kosovars were heading for the border. At the Montenegro boundary, one column of refugees awaiting entry extended in an unbroken line of misery for 20 miles. Late last week, fearing internal instability, Macedonia closed its borders, with thousands of Kosovars still waiting to get in.

WHAT THE REFUGEES LEFT BEHIND WAS A SERB SPASM of looting, terror and executions; what they encountered on the other side of the frontier was a teeming mess of poverty, hunger and disease. In Rozaje refugees drifted through the streets, hungry and shell-shocked; some would come across small obstacles and simply stop and weep. Doctors scrambled to prevent the crowding and dismal sanitation from causing a tuberculosis epidemic, but their efforts seemed of little use. "People don't even have spoons, so everyone eats from one bowl. Women are giving birth next to men with TB. It is an epidemiological bomb," said a local doctor. Added another: "This is hell."

If so, the refugees had already come face to face with the devils. In many villages early last week, Serb paramilitaries surrounded Albanian homes, broke down doors and ordered villagers to pack up and go. Some refugees said they were lined up and commanded to yell "Serbia! Serbia!" and give the three-finger Serb victory salute. "Go to Albania. That's your country," Serb troops told a group of ethnic Albanians hiding in Mamusa, a village 22 miles from the Albanian border. "And say hello to Bill Clinton. You will never see Kosovo again." Serb paramilitary forces were said to have committed grisly atrocities. There were reports of summary executions in at least 20 towns and villages. According to the State Department, Albanian men in Djakovica were systematically separated from women and children.

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