Dear Somnath,
My family and I are still okay. How are your kids and wife? I couldn't write earlier and you will see in this letter why. This letter is maybe a little longer and confused but it was written over several different days and in lousy circumstances before I could send it....

April 17, 1999
A few nights ago the army hospital was damaged. Missiles fell less than 100 metres beside the building which is used by civilians and military. It's one of the best hospitals in YU (Yugoslavia) and used for all complicated operations.

A three-year old kid died in her bathroom, killed by shrapnel from a cluster bomb which came in through the window. When they hit the village a father and his 11-month-old daughter died, but the six-month-pregnant wife survived. When Isaw her I cried, for the first time since all this started... My Anja is very well, thank God, and she has become popular among kids in the street...She is still too small to be allowed to go out into the street alone, but now it's okay and she's got a lot of friends. All the kids are acting so mature for their age, like they grew up overnight.

April 20
Days here are pretty the same lately -- they are just more or less bad, but they are all bad... I have problems with Net access lately because my provider is moving equipment. They expect their building to be one of the next targets since they already hit one business centre building.

That's why I'm so silent...In that building are famous non-government media (TV and radio station "Studio B" and daily newspaper "Blic") and many other private offices but we all guess that for Nato it doesn't make much difference now. They are still searching for bodies in RTS building (our official TV station). We never watched their program (it's really impossiblewithout a puke bag).

At the moment I'm in a phase when nothing can surprise me. Whatever target they aim at, they can pronounce everything to be a legitimate target. I'm really sorry for the kids who died in Surdulica, but I guess that Nato would say they were also legitimate targets 'cause these kids would be soldiers one day.

April 21
Our spirits are still high and that is really the only way for us to survive, we all hope it'll end soon and in a positive way for us (if it's possible with all the civilians who died).

We have loads of fresh jokes about this situation so I'll tell you some favourites...what will we do without laughter and humour?

Q: Do you know how a Serb crosses a street in Belgrade these days?

A: He looks left, right and -- up.

Q: How does a Serb feel in the morning when he gets up?

A: Missed.

Little American and Little Serb are talking in 2010. Little Serb says "You don't have history" and Little American says to Little Serb: "But you don't have geography".

As long aswe can make jokes on ourselves we are still human beings...

April 26
Something happened to my computer... Electricity failed while I was working on the computer... system failed and after that I cannot get on the Net anymore ..I hope that I'll find someone to fix it soon...

May 7
As you heard till now, we were without electricity for seven days... Well, we were without water too, mostly... but we are smart people and we manage with it more or less... My friend was here and he fixed my computer. The last few nights were pretty quiet in Belgrade so we expect tough nights (going by past experience till now)... Unfortunately people in Serbia weren't so lucky.

They don't choose targets any more. They're hitting civilians all the time with lousy excuses that army is nearby. In Valjevo (about 30,000 citizens), they dropped more than 40 missiles one night. Some of them hit three civilian colonies and more than 100 families are now without homes.

In Nis, they hit the biggest civilian settlement... In thesame town, in the middle of the day, they bombed the centre of town including the hospital!!!! Novi Sad (80 km from Belgrade) is without electricity and water for days ... Nato ruined it really badly... Kosovo is a real ruin too... Nato are bombing them all the time. And after that they are saying that Serbs are guilty because of refugees!

If the whole idea of bombing was to "stop human catastrophe" I can't understand how it works in practice -- maybe: when you kill all, you wouldn't have humans anymore, so you wouldn't have a catastrophe either!

I can't think anymore, and I can't write either... Well, I hope I'll manage to send this tonight...

May 9
I wasn't lucky... Friday night was a real nightmare! Well, at first we stayed without electricity again (for more than 24 hours)... Second, we were bombed the whole night... You can't imagine how it was... Everything was shaking all around... I thought the whole house will crash down on my head... We were awake all night...

They hit the Chineseembassy and a hotel 100 metres away from the embassy... I can't believe that they hit the Chinese embassy!!! What do they want - Third World War?!!! I can understand a mistake with one lost missile, but they hit the embassy with three missiles from three different sides!!! That can't be mistake.

I can't understand why we are at war at all. What do they want so badly from our country? We don't have oil, gold, or anything -- what we have is only geo-strategic position. I think that Nato is desperate... It seems that they didn't expect that we would defend ourselves so strong and long. They forget that we are a proud and brave nation.

I just heard something: One Serbian refugees from Krajina (who now lives in New Zealand) recognised himself in one of the refugees camps, being shown on New Zealand TV as Albanian refugees! That videotape is five years old! What irony!

To end this letter, another joke:
Do you know the "unofficial" story as to how the war in Serbia started?

Well, it was at a G8 meeting,and Madeline Albright was only the female present. After a few hours of arguing, Madeline said: OK, people we have to decide will we make love or war? And all the males present, terrified, looked at her and screamed: WAR!!!!

Till next time take care and pray for us....

Love and kisses

Alex