Last June hundreds of Kosovar men, women and children who had been forced from their homes by war were airlifted to a new life in Bradford. Their year is almost up and the Home Office is insisting they return home next month. But, as Social Affairs Reporter Sarah Walsh found out, some traumatised families do not believe it is safe to go back yet. Their homes have been burned out, their communities torn apart and as Albanian Muslims, they fear reprisals from Serb factions which still hold sway in parts of their homeland. And they are still haunted by the too-fresh memories of what drove them away this time last year.

GCSE STUDENT Meriton Morina goes to Carlton Bolling School. Like thousands of others in Bradford he now has his head down revising for exams next month.

But this 16-year-old is a bit special.

As well as having his two GCSE maths papers to worry about he has bigger concerns - about how long he and his family can stay in their safe haven in Bradford.

The Morinas are Kosovar Albanians: they were airlifted from their war-torn region last summer and plucked to safety in Britain.

But Meriton and his family's time is up in June according to the British Government, which will insist that they must go home when their one- year visas expire.

The Government's insistence that they may only stay here a year is a great worry to people like the Morina family who are not convinced the Kosovo awaiting them is any less dangerous for Albanians than when they left - hurriedly, taking just a few clothes in a bag - last year.

Meriton, who is a serious but friendly lad who says he has made good friends at Carlton Bolling School, lives in a modest council house on a Bradford estate with older brothers Arton, 18 and Faton, 21; sister Merita, 22; father Gani, 45; mother Nexhmije, 41 and grandparents Hajriz, 63 and Elmije, 63.

The family left everything - their home, car, all their furniture and personal things at home in the town of Fushe Kosovo near Pristina.

As a result the spick and span living room of their Bradford home, although nicely decorated by their council landlords, is bare.

Brand new but plain chairs and tables furnish the room - bought under a DSS scheme - but there are none of the personal things: photographs, books, junk - that make most people's houses a home.

Visitors are served a glass of Coca Cola and a plate of Jaffa cakes on a tray with great formality and made to feel very welcome but the functional room has the feel of a hostel.

The family find it hard to talk about their reasons for leaving Kosovo.

At first they refuse to say anything at all.

Asked what they miss, Gani, a former mine worker, says: "It's so upsetting to think about it - so we don't think about it. We miss nothing.

"Always - even before the war - our life was hard. The Serbs closed our schools in 1989. They stopped Albanian people getting work - there were fewer jobs. And there were less doctors - they didn't want them to work in the hospitals."

His son Artan - who, like Meriton, has excellent English - continues: "Where we lived, there were all Serbs around us. We left and went to another village, stayed there a month then there was another Serb offensive in that area so we went to Pristina. It was there that me and my brother were taken to the police station.

"They were so angry, with guns. They didn't fight us. But I couldn't see what else was going on, because our faces were to the wall.

"Three days later, we took a bus to the border and ended up in a refugee camp in Macedonia called Bojana.

"We felt really bad leaving. Kosovo is our country. We left behind our neighbours, my mum's family and my grandma's family. Everything, we left in Kosovo. The house, all the furniture, our car. We couldn't take anything, only clothes. We don't know where any of it is now. The house we know is burned.

"We think it isn't safe yet. We are hoping to stay here. We are still in trauma, from being in Kosovo."

The whole family are impressed with Bradford. And touchingly grateful to the British Government.

"Everything is different here, but everything is good. The schools are nice, people are nice, everything is nice. We want to say thank you very much to the Government of England, for taking us from Macedonia to here," said Mr Morina. "We also want to say thank you to all the council staff at Shipley who have been very nice. They waited for us with open arms. People have welcomed us and given the children toys."

Danger 'is still real' for refugees

"Kosovo is barely bigger than Yorkshire, it's over populated, it's been devastated by war, what are you sending people back for?" asks Balkans expert, Professor Tom Gallagher of Bradford University's Peace Studies Department. He believes that the danger to Kosovar Albanian families has been reduced but is still real in some parts of the country. And sending homeless refugees back can only make things worse.

"The political balance within the Albanian community is delicate, and elections are due soon. If you send back a lot of people with king-sized grievances about the way they have been treated, it isn't going to help, in my view."

Governments who had promised to help rebuild the shattered country were failing in their task, he added: "When you look at the amount they spent on military hardware - it seems difficult for them to concentrate the same energy on rebuilding homes and roads and drainage. The reconstruction has been very poorly co-ordinated.

"It's a very disturbed place still. In places like Pristina, there's a lot of crime, a lot of hopelessness. It varies from place to place. The Government should have people on the ground, checking out local conditions to see if it's safe for people to go back. If that's not being done, lots of questions should be asked."

"Germany took by far the largest block of refugees," Professor Gallagher said. "Some regions of Germany are sending huge amounts of people back at about 20 minutes' notice, just telling them to get on the plane."

The Refugee Council is concerned about the Kosovar returns programme.

"The people who came to Britain were chosen on the basis of vulnerability. Of those remaining in the UK many are not yet ready to return," said Fazil Kawani, of the Refugee Council.

"Some may be receiving medical treatment for serious conditions, such as cancer, and some will still be suffering the consequences of the trauma they experienced or witnessed.

"As well, some of those airlifted out came from areas that are still considered unsafe. The UNHCR advises against the return of Kosovar Albanians to Serb-dominated areas."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.