IVAJA, Serbia (Reuters) - Serb forces have bombarded and swept through the Kosovo village of Ivaja, leaving most of the houses smouldering ruins and forcing its inhabitants to flee, international monitors and reporters said on Wednesday. Reporters found the body of a man in civilian clothes who appeared to have been shot at close range and met a blood-caked 84-year-old man who said he was beaten with rifle butts by Serb soldiers searching for seperatist ethnic Albanian rebels. The house that had been used as the local headquarters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) brigade was burned out and the interior of the mosque devestated. The mosque‘s exterior had been sprayed with bullets. "The fighting started yesterday. The VJ and MUP (Serb forces) tried to clear the area of KLA and you can see it was successful," said international truce monitor Otto Bischof who was inspecting the ruins of the village. "They beat me with rifles and asked me if I knew anyone from the KLA," said Ramadan Muljoki, the only survivor still in the village. "They asked me if my son was in the KLA and I said no and they beat me again." Some 400 inhabitants of Ivaja were rounded up by Serb forces on Tuesday after fleeing their homes. The men were seperated out and taken away to check if they were affiliated to the KLA, an incident that ceasefire verifiers called very worrying.