As flames began licking from the windows, an elderly couple turned their backs on their well-kept house, bearing the word `Srpska' (Serb) on its facade in red letters.

They headed for the border with Montenegro, 20 km away in their small Zastava saloon, laden down with a varied assortment of possessions.

In the same street a number of other houses were already well alight, set afire by their owners or by the Army and the police retreating before the advance of the international peacekeeping force KFOR.

The arrival in Pec Monday of soldiers from KFOR's Italian contingent failed to reassure the Serb inhabitants fearing the vengeance of the province's ethnic Albanian population and particularly the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

More than 13,000 had already Left for Montenegro, Serbia's smaller neighbour in the Yugoslav federation, byMonday. Those without cars were being charged 1,000 dollars by local transporters to take them.

The mountain road from Pec was crowded with cars, tractors and trailers, trucks and horse-drawn carts in a scene reminiscent of the exodus in the past three months of ethnic Albanians forced out by Serb troops to Albania and Macedonia.

Meanwhile outside the town hall a score of men asked local elders whether they should go or stay.

``Don't leave,'' said Teodosije, superior of the Decani monastery, one of the centres of the Serbian Orthodox Church. ``The international troops will protect the Serbs as well as the Albanians.''

But Milosav Bogicevic, who lost a son in the fighting between federal forces and the KLA was torn between leaving and remaining.

``There is no more life for me here, we have been betrayed,'' he said, then added: ``I can't forgive myself for leaving my son's grave behind.''