In Prizren, in the southwest, the hospital and a number of firms have new directors, approved by Kadri Kryesiu, the local governor appointed by the KLA-dominated ``provisional government'' of Kosovo. Rafet Abasi, in charge of the hospital and district dispensaries, explained: ``After the Serb management left, a spontaneous organisation operated for a week, then the KLA took over and I was named director.'' Another director, Bujar Demiri, had been elected by the staff a few days beforehand, and many employees sacked by the Serbs over previous years have been given their jobs back.

While UN-appointed police have still to make their appearance, the KLA has sponsored the establishment of a force to counter petty crime, amid rumours that mafia gangs from neighbouring Albania are moving in to Kosovo.

Arlind Germizaj,head of a group calling itself the `Youth of Prizren', controls bands of half-a-dozen strong of 18 to 22-year-olds, who expel black market traders selling petrol and cigarettes, or remove the number plates of badly-parked cars. The group's manifesto is a document dated June 21, written in German for he benefit of the German contingent of the international KFOR peacekeeping force based in Prizren and signed by Kryesiu and Germizaj.

``We need a clean city like it was before,'' it states, adding that ``the distribution of food supplied by humanitarian organisations must be controlled by KFOR, our municipality and us, the young people.'' Germindaj said: ``The Youth of Prizren know they have no KFOR mandate for 70 per cent of what they do but they are acting for the good of the people.''

The Youth of Prozren operate in collaboration with the police force formed by the municipality from demobilised KLA guerrillas rather than with KFOR. ``We are recruiting 100 people,'' Kryesiu said of this force. ``They arepolicemen who were trained in Albania or other foreign countries.''

Asked about the Youth of Prizren and their activities, the commander of the KFOR German contingent, General Fritz von Korff, said he knew nothing of them. Kryesiu is also trying to revive economic activity at Prizren, again concentrating on restoring the situation to pre-1990, when Belgrade scrapped Kosovo's autonomous status and deprived the majority ethnic Albanians of their positions.

Nazim Hoxha, who now runs the Conasport shoe factory, said that two days before the fighting ended in Kosovo Kryesiu had called on Albanian radio for former officials to reclaim their jobs. Elsewhere in Kosovo former guerrillas, disarmed under an agreement between the KLA and KFOR, are asserting their presence with the aim of entering the new police force to be set up by the UN.