that torture and ill-treatment — often racially motivated — was still widely reported across the continent. Amnesty said hundreds of ethnic Albanians "disappeared" at the hands of security forces in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. "Many of them were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by police, army or civilians armed by the authorities." It said 250,000 people were displaced last year, many of them forcibly, in the buildup of tension which eventually led NATO in March to launch 78 days of air strikes to force Serbian troops to withdraw from Kosovo. By the beginning of May 1999, Amnesty said, 800,000 people had fled Kosovo. "Refugees from Kosovo have given harrowing accounts of violent and forcible expulsions accompanied by killings, rapes, beatings, arbitrary detention and house burnings carried out by members of the Serbian police, the Yugoslav army and paramilitaries," Amnesty said. Ethnic Albanian fighters, Amnesty added, were also responsible for violations including hostage-taking and arbitrary killings, though on a far smaller scale. Elsewhere in Europe, Amnesty said torture and ill-treatment remained the most widely reported human rights violations. The United Nations Committee against Torture expressed concern about deaths in police custody in Britain and "the apparent failure of the state to provide effective mechanisms to deal with allegations of abuse, including racist verbal abuse, by police and prison authorities". The report gave no figure for the number of deaths in custody but an Amnesty official said on average a handful of deaths in detention gave it cause for concern. At least nine people were killed by Bulgarian police in disputed circumstances, Amnesty said, while in Turkey torture — including sexual assault and torture of children — was common. It cited reports of racially motivated assaults by law enforcement officers in Spain and Portugal. Foreigners or asylum seekers were also reportedly badly treated in Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium, where there were allegations of physical assault and dangerous methods of restraint. In Albania, Russia and Greece prison conditions were reported amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, Amnesty said.