NATO officials say virtually all Yugoslav forces have now left Kosovo, well ahead of the deadline of midnight agreed with NATO last week.
The departure of the 41,000 Yugoslav troops and police is seen as vital to the process of returning hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees to their homes in the province.
As the Serb forces pull out and K-FOR peacekeeping troops move in, increasing numbers of Serb civilians are fleeing the province in fear of reprisals by Albanian civilians and the Kosovo Liberation Army. But NATO is hopeful that the KLA will soon sign a formal demilitarisation agreement.
Yugoslavia's deputy PM Milovan Bojic has urged those who have fled to return in organised convoys within the next two days, warning that it could prove too difficult to go back later. An agreement is said to be close with the Kosovan Liberation Army for their new role after the Serbian army withdrawal is completed.
Meanwhile, a British newspaper has reported that NATO has discovered concentration camps housing up to 60,000 Albanian refugees. The Sunday Telegraph said that the Albanian families were rounded up from mountain hideouts in a Serb operation in mid-April.
They were then driven to five ransacked villages which were converted into concentration camps near the town of Podujevo in northern Kosovo. The paper said they were to be held at the camp, known as Saykovac, to be used if necessary as human shields in the event of a ground war with NATO.
