Pat Bradley's eyes glisten with tears when he recalls the plight of East Timorese people who fled into the compound of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) last Thursday, seeking refuge from gunfire outside.
One of the enduring images of that day was of the tough no-nonsense Derryman, in white shirt, mingling with the terrified local people who were praying in the assembly area, pouring drinking water for children from a heavy plastic container as gunfire rattled through the nearby avenue.
"I was really shocked," the chief Northern Ireland electoral officer said. "There were about 350 refugees in the mission. These kids and old women were terrified. You could see the fear in their eyes."
Mr Bradley also described coming under fire in Dili on Saturday, the day before he was withdrawn from the East Timor capital along with Mr Johann Kriegler (South Africa) and Ms Bong-Scuk Sohn (South Korea), the two other electoral commissioners appointed to East Timor by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan.
"I left the compound on Saturday with Johann Kriegler to go a short distance to our house at Villa Verde nearby for a change of clothes," he said. "We saw two guys, one squatting, one standing. The one standing had something in his hand.
"Both his hands went level. I was under the impression he had a home-made gun. Johann thought it was a revolver. He came running towards us, firing. We did a three-point turn and raced back to the compound."
No one was injured in the attack. He had to stay that night in the UNAMET compound. "We were going to sleep on the floor and got a few cardboard boxes but there were 150 people in that small area, so I slept the night in the Land Rover with Johann. It was very uncomfortable as we couldn't open the windows because of the mosquitoes."
Mr Bradley and his colleagues were taken in convoy to Dili airport on Sunday through streets patrolled by armed militias, and flown out to Jakarta. Yesterday he left Indonesia to return to Belfast.