Hiding from the fighting - life in the forested mountains was "home" to many people unable to join the defense of their villages.

This car, crushed by a tank, is typical of the wanton destruction seen in every village at the time.

Tractor and farmyard in a devastated village in South-Eastern Kosova.

This grenade is typical of the thousands of lethal munitions littering the country.

Shell casings, common evidence of a shooting frenzy, probably by a band of young, drunk looters-cum-soldiers.

Burning home. The bathroom and kitchen suites had been carefully removed - i.e. stolen - before the house was firebombed.

This photograph shows the volunteers from this convoy being taken on a tour of Skënderaj, near where our host grew up. The ruins are the local school.

Kids were spared no details of the war. Here two children proudly show us the assault rifle they had recently found.

Unloading the aid... and developing strong arms! This photo is from a convoy where we were asked to help out students from Aberdeen University who had raised funds to send a classroom of computers, and other aid, to Prishtine University. We supported them and others from Workers' Aid, and the convoy delivered aid in 5 vehicles in July/August 1999, just after the NATO bombing was over.

Giving out toys to children near Mitrovica, where we met up with workers from the International Medical Corps, who were delighted to receive our aid for the projects they work with in the isolated mountain villages in this complicated mining region. A large agency had supplied an ambulance, but this could not be used in the town because it is starkly divided between Albanian and Serb populations, and to give such a major item to either community would have caused violence and resentment. So imagine the delight when our convoy turned up, including another ambulance! This was brought by one of the groups we work with, from Kent, who received great support from their local health authority.

In Gjakova, in Eastern Kosova, we met a local photographer whose studio had been destroyed. He turned his skills to helping the town officials find relatives of orphaned children. He showed us this selection of the 331 tragic portraits he had taken.

Despite the terrible losses to so many families, the children we met were incredibly strong and determined to enjoy themselves now the worst of the fighting was over. Whenever we passed children on their way to school, every one of them wanted to "high five" with their hands, and most were shouting their favourite phrase in English, perhaps slightly misunderstanding who we were: "Hello Nato!"

This photo shows a group of young people descending upon our trucks as we arrive - this often happens and a good part of our time is spent getting to know them, and learning the local languages! In this case, many of the children were spending all day amusing themselves, with the older looking after the younger. The parents would be busy spending every minute trying to rebuild their homes.

Convoy cuisine! These days we're pretty much expert at knowing the right places to stop en route, but whenever we travel to a new region, the spirit of improvisation rules. This has led to our discovering some beautiful places in countries like Greece and Italy, which are crucial to the unwinding one must do on the journey home. In this photograph, however, we were reduced to cooking in a service station forecourt...

In this photo, children from an Aberdeenshire after-school club paint one of our trucks to send their love with our aid! Children in Kosova later painted the other side of the truck as a return message, and in March 2002 children of Ukraine will be doing some more painting - so do invite our trucks to come and help us talk to your school or office and explain what we do, and what you can do!

Here some of the children we met in Prishtine are painting their reply on one of our trucks. They were very focussed, and most of their messages were along the lines of "thank-you".