Lorik Cana has told L'Equipe he heard cries of "Kill, kill the Albanians" during his nation's abandoned Euro 2016 qualifier with Serbia.
Cana, 31, and his teammates were forced to defend themselves before fleeing to the safety of the dressing room in Belgrade on Tuesday after Serbian fans invaded the pitch and attacked visiting players.
"There were racist and hateful chants," he said. "There were three of them. The first was: 'Kosovo is part of Serbia.' The second: 'Kill, kill the Albanians.' And the third: 'You are monkeys!' But we ignored that."
The incident was sparked when a drone flying the Albanian flag and showing a map of Kosovo -- which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but is not recognised by its neighbour -- flew over the pitch.
Cana continued: "The people attacked us; a guy even came with a chair and hit one of our players on the head. When I saw that, I had to defend him. What was terrible was that even the stewards started hitting us. I received blows from members of the stadium security.
"If you saw some of the bodies... they really caught it. What would have happened if instead of a chair, it had been a knife? Our lives were in danger.
"We took the decision to get back to the dressing room as quickly as possible, but we had to get to the players' tunnel, and we saw their supporters get through the security barriers and come towards us. We were hit with stones, batteries...It was really dangerous and I just tried to gather everyone together."
Cana added that he was kicked in the stomach as the team, who were left with "six or seven" members of their delegation injured according to the former PSG and Marseille midfielder himself, eventually got back to the dressing room where they waited for three-and-a-half hours before finally heading for home.
Football should never be used for political messages. I strongly condemn what happened in Belgrade last night
- Joseph S Blatter (@SeppBlatter) October 15, 2014
UEFA have already opened an enquiry into the disturbances and have charged both Football Associations for their misconduct.
Reflecting on the incidents, the president of European football's governing body, Michel Platini, told TF1 it may have been worse.
"It's not only shameful, just imagine a drone comes onto the pitch like that and there's a bomb rather than a flag?" he said.
"What would we do? It's sad, but we have to be very careful because it's becoming dangerous, especially in those countries over there where there is an enormous amount of political tension."
Meanwhile, in France, the prefect of the Alpes-Maritime region has banned Bastia fans from attending Saturday's league game with Nice, while also forbidding any symbol of Corsica to be shown at the Allianz Riveira.
The unusual measure was taken due to a section of Bastia's following being frequently involved in violent incidents since the start of the season, notably before and after their opening league match of the campaign against Marseille on Aug. 9.