AS the world prepares for a new Millennium there are still hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have had to flee their native homelands. Reporter DAVID CROOKES spoke to a family of Kosovan refugees who are making a new life in Bolton. THE middle-aged man peered cautiously around the door of his home and stared into the grey weather of the icy cold street. Wearing a jumper and jeans and with his hair neatly combed, Ajet Zhitia flung the door wide open and extended his welcome. There were no obvious clues, except perhaps for his muffled, foreign-sounding voice, to show that the man perched anxiously in his hallway with one half of his body feeling the biting cold and the other enjoying the warmth of central heating had literally escaped from a man-made hell just six months ago.

His home is warm and inviting. The green carpet is plush. The sofas are comfortable. There is a television, a video and a satellite system in the corner of the room.

And if it wasn't for the fact that Mr Zhitia had fought for the Kosovan Liberation Army (KLA), seeking to protect his wife, four children and his ill mother from the deadly Serbian onslaught earlier this year, he would have been no more interesting than any of his English neighbours.

Before the conflict in March, the attempted "ethic cleansing" of the Kosovan people by the Serbian Army shocked most of Europe and America.

Mr Zhitia was one of those forced to flee from his home and considering his tormentors had once been his friends, one could have forgiven him if he was reluctant to talk to a complete stranger about his time both here and abroad.

Yet, communicating through Kosovan-born interpreter Edmond Qartkaxhiu, Mr Zhitia spoke openly and frankly about his life in Kosovo and in the School Hill area of Bolton. He explained the fear and pain associated with war and talked of his expectations for the new millennium. "It was really bad for me in Kosovo," he said. "There was fighting all the time and it was hard to get food and live anything like a normal life.

"When the troubles began my family had to move. The wife, children and my mother, they all had to leave."

As we talk, his two year old daughter Shukrie, enters the room, plays near a small table and leaves again.

The picture is one of domestic bliss. His wife, Qamile, is in the kitchen and his other three children, Shkurte, nine, Adeline, five, and Albana, four, can be heard laughing and chatting among themselves.

But the attention turns away from them as he is asked about his role in the bloody Yugoslavian war which tore Europe apart, both politically and physically, for two months.

He initially denies playing a part in the battle - "I didn't fight", he said - but he later concedes that he was involved.

He admitted: "I wasn't on the front line but I joined the KLA when my family went to live on the mountains. I was in the army for a month and ten days but I didn't take part in arm to arm combat. I was looking after civilians. It was my job to move them whenever the Serbs got near."

Did he feel anger towards the Serbs? "Yes," he says . Did he kill any of them? "No," he answers. Would he have killed anybody? He falls silent and shrugs his shoulders. His interpreter said he didn't know.

Mr Zhitia added: "I am glad my family were safe. I did not know during my time in the KLA that they had made it to Macedonia and it was scary. There were Serbs everywhere, wearing masks and uniforms with big badges on their arms which identified which sector they belonged to."

"I was afraid at the side effects it could have had for my children. When NATO arrived we were all very happy and we waited for them to come in."

The former corner shop owner said he used to live in a nice area in the Kosovan town of Podujeva. His two eldest children went to school and his relatives lived nearby.

But, like many of the people made refugees by the conflict, Mr Zhitia and his family express their strong feelings for the British.

He said: "My life has changed 360 degrees. I'm happy the children are going to school and they are forgetting what happened. We have been made to feel welcome from the beginning.

"My children are learning English, like myself. I go to college four times a week. We are all picking it up but I wish my children could be separated from the others and taught properly so they could pick it up quicker.

"English is very important. It is good to know other languages."

He talks like any other father, concerned about education. He has taken his children on a tour of the county to expand their horizons - he nods approvingly at the mention of the Trafford Centre - and he looks ahead to the year 2000 when he will invite some of his fellow refugees into his home for a party.

Yet his forward looking approach briefly disappears when he talks about his mother. She died six weeks ago in the Royal Bolton Hospital after battling with cancer.

He said: "The people at the hospital in Bolton were very good to her. They treated her very well."

Hadn't death, perversely, become a way of life for him? He answered: "No. A few of my relatives - not close relatives - were killed by the Serbs. It makes me sad. We weren't able to go to the funerals because we could only leave our hiding places at night and creep around."

But despite the warm welcome he has received, his heart is still in Kosovo. "We have coped very well here. We never dreamed that we would have ended up in England and we came with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

"But Kosovo is my country and we wish to go back. Once the situation gets better and the children have learnt more English we will return. One day we will go back."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.