So he opened a private clinic in the town of Rahovec an area

So he opened a private clinic in the town of Rahovec, an area dominated by the Kosovo Liberation Army, where fierce fighting took place last summer. In 1995, like thousands of teachers, lawyers and civil servants in Kosovo, he was sacked from his job as a vascular surgeon in a state hospital in an ongoing purge of ethnic Albanian professionals - between 1990 and 1998, some 2,000 medical workers lost their state jobs. "They have done everything to prevent the creation of medical care, especially in the areas controlled by the KLA."Dr Jaha's own story is a fine illustration of the policy, which began long before the Nato bombs began falling. Last November, Nuredin Zejnullativ, a specialist in internal diseases was shot dead in his house by masked men. In February this year, Xhevdet Gastri, was found shot through the back of the head after being abducted from the same town, Pec.

By PHR's reckoning, at least 28 doctors have been arrested, and numerous others have been invited in for euphemistically titled "informative talks". "They call you in and they intimidate you, usually with the use of force," says Dr Jaha. Apart from the suffering of the individuals, they illustrate one of the most fearful features of Serbian policy towards Kosovo's Albanian population - its systematic nature, targeting not just individuals, or even an ethnic group, but entire institutions. Ever since Albanian nationalism began to stir in Kosovo, the Serbian government has attempted to deprive the province's medical establishment of its eyes and hands. Since widespread fighting got underway in Kosovo in spring last year, at least four other doctors have died in circumstances similar to Dr Ukaj. Among all the tales of violence and persecution, the stories told by Albanian doctors are especially telling. The rumour was that they also put out his eyes, although that we never confirmed." Nothing could serve as a better illustration of the attitude of the Serbian regime towards the ethnic Albanian medical profession. The police arrived last September with a photograph of the doctor.

After they had identified him, they asked him a strange question. Which hand did he use to operate on his patients? Dr Ukaj held up his right hand. "Then they grabbed him and they cut off his fingers," says Dr Jaha, an investigator for the organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) "Later they killed him. He was with a group of patients when they came for him, so there were several witnesses to what happened. His clinic, in the Kosovan town of Gllogoc, had been destroyed by Serb shelling weeks before, and like many Albanian professionals - lawyers and teachers, as well as doctors - he had taken to practising in a private house.

Donations can be made on 0870 606 0900 or 0990 222 233 or sent to Disasters Emergency Committee Kosovo Appeal, PO Box 999, London, EC4A 9AA. Cash can also be given at banks, building societies and post offices.. OF ALL the cases documented by Luan Jaha, none was so brutally symbolic as the death of Dr Lec Ukaj. A co-ordinator at the DEC, which is made up of 12 leading charities, said: "We are very pleased to confirm that we have broken the pounds 10m mark on day six of the appeal." The Independent launched the DEC appeal with its readers and the joint appeal has been organised on behalf of the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, CAFOD, CARE International UK, Children's Aid Direct, Concern Worldwide, Help The Aged, Merlin, Oxfam, Save The Children, Tearfund and World Vision. THE INDEPENDENT'S appeal for Kosovo has reached pounds 375,000 while the total raised by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has now exceeded pounds 10m. Greeks have long held Albanians responsible for the country's growing crime problem. Now there are reports of frightened Albanian workers returning home after death threats from Greek nationalist extremists, linked to the Orthodox church..

It contains no provisions for mutual defence, or even economic aid. At best, it is a symbolic gesture of solidarity which left even Russia lukewarm.But for Montenegro it could be the litmus test. The socialist old guard will demand that it assents to the union. But even before the vote in Belgrade, senior Montenegrin officials were insisting the republic's future lay in the European Union and Nato's Partnership for Peace, rather than - as one supporter of Mr Djukanovic put it, in a recourse to "myths" and "Orthodox fundamentalism".Meanwhile Greece, the Balkans' richest Orthodox nation, still manages to walk the tightrope between Nato membership and a deep instinctive and historical sympathy for Serbia, its ally against the Turks in Balkan conflicts past.But there too, tensions are growing. Yesterday's news that the Yugoslav Parliament had voted to join a "Slav Union" with Russia and Belarus only brings that prospect nearer.Of itself, the union does not represent much of a step towards the spectre of the wider European war Boris Yeltsin was brandishing last week. Indeed, that showdown could yet come, should the Nato force enter Kosovo against the wishes of President Milosevic.But the most precarious Balkan domino chain is probably Montenegro, Serbia's junior - and last remaining - partner republic in the Yugoslav federation, where the war has brought strains between the reformist, Westernising government of Milo Djukanovic which took power last year, and the pro- Milosevic opposition, backed by the Yugoslav army, to breaking point.Mr Djukanovic has warned of a civil war if Belgrade tried to foment a coup against him. In retrospect, the key to Macedonia's relative stability is the deed for which 10 days ago it was most bitterly criticised: the forced onward expulsion to Albania and elsewhere of the tens of thousands of refugees who had fled there from the Serb terror.Though the step certainly compounded the appalling human suffering of the Kosovo Albanians, it may well have averted a showdown between the Macedonia's Slav majority and its large and restive Albanian minority, creating in effect a second Kosovo - but with 12,000 Nato troops caught in the middle.