A KOSOVAN dad has relived the horror of armed police forcing him and his family from his homeland at gunpoint.

Masked special police descended and pointed a gun at Gazmend Popova as they robbed him of the equivalent of £200.

Then Gazmend, his wife Lirije, their four young children and their extended family were deported.

The 18 relatives crammed into a train carriage that is meant to hold just six people for the journey to Macedonia. There Gazmend and his family were put up by an Albanian family until they were airlifted to Britain and a home in Old Trafford last month.

Gazmend and his family had fled their home in Vuchitrn 10 days before the NATO bombing started, and went to stay with Gazmend's in-laws. But then they were kicked out of their homeland by the Serb police and their own home has now been burnt to the ground.

Gazmend - who is an electronics engineer and had been acting as an interpreter for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - says: "Masked men came and they pointed a gun at me and forced me to hand over money. Because of my work for the OSCE I was prepared for it but my wife and children were very scared."

Gazmend continues: "All 18 of us were in the same train carriage. But we managed to stay together. We did not suffer as much as others because we did not lose any members of our family.

"But even now when my children hear the sound of a police car they feel scared."

He says of the moves to secure peace: "I am hopeful about the peace deal, but it will only be successful if the deported people go back. I believe that will happen. I think most of the people will go home but I would like to stay here for some years."

He relaxed as he accompanied a group of Kosovan boys to a sports week at Ashton on Mersey School, where they mixed with local youngsters playing football, table tennis, basketball and trampolining. Gazmend told Messenger they had been made to feel at home in Trafford: "It has been very good, we have been made very welcome.

He joked: "The only thing I don't like about England is the weather - everything else is very good."

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