I AM writing about the tragedy of Kosovo with advice about what readers can do about it.

Britain's Defence Secretary has spoken of genocide happening. Bodies have been reported lying in the roads of western Kosovo.

The biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War is being created.

The tidal wave of refugees is reported to be made up overwhelmingly of women and children. What has happened to the men? Are their bodies lying in mass graves? Quite possibly.

NATO has the manpower, idling its time away while innocent men, and possibly women and children too, are murdered.

What can we, safely tucked up in Lancashire, do about it all?

I urge readers to write to Jack Straw MP, a man of great influence with the Prime Minister, or their own MP at the House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA asking him or her to urge the Prime Minister to send heavily-armed ground troops into Kosovo as a matter of urgency.

Politicians do take notice of their constituents.

I shall leave the last words to those reportedly spoken by a refugee. "The only thing which can save us is for NATO to send in ground troops."

CHRIS WRIGLEY, Ballantrae Road, Blackburn.

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