Orphan fled Serbia for UK with pounds 7

A TEENAGE Serbian orphan who fled 2,000 miles to Britain said yesterday he did it because he was told his Muslim father and Roman Catholic mother had died in an accident and that he would have to join the army.

Andi Ducka, 16, from Peje, near the southern Serbian border with Albania, arrived in North Shields, Tyne and Wear, last week.

The week-long train journey from Peje took him through Italy, Germany, Sweden and Norway before he stowed away on a ferry from Bergen to North Shields.

Andi said in a staement released through North Tyneside social services: 'I did not have any papers and about 20 German marks, and I didn't have any difficulty in crossing the borders of the various countries.'

Andi, an only child, said: 'I left home after the police told me my parents had been in an accident and had both been killed. They told me that I must join the army. I was frightened and I had no way to check what they had told me was true.'