The field by the stream in the centre of the village of Pastasel/Pusto Selo has become overgrown with bushes over the years.

But in recent days, Tahir Krasniqi has repeatedly pondered whether to take an axe and cut back the thorny branches, to clear up the place where two decades ago, he and 118 other civilians were sent to be killed.

On the afternoon of March, 31, 1999, Serbian military, paramilitary and police forces surrounded this village of around 100 homes in the municipality of Rahovec/Orahovac, which in previous weeks had doubled its population as many people who had been displaced from other villages by the war had arrived to take refuge there.