A digest of the latest refugee news,
as reported by the world's media.

KOSOVO: RETURN PLANNING 23 Apr. 99 - Planning for the humanitarian programme which will be needed to accompany the return of refugees to Kosovo began in London yesterday, reports the Guardian. Britain's international development secretary, Clare Short, hosted talks with American, French, German and Italian officials to start preparing for the immediate needs which Kosovan refugees will face when they return home, through to the long term reconstruction of the region. Political leaders and professionals such as doctors are being identified in the refugee camps so they can be involved in the planning of democratic structures in Kosovo. The meeting agreed to accelerate preparation so that the humanitarian effort would be ready as soon as refugees could return. Short said an interim international administration in Kosovo was envisaged to co-ordinate the humanitarian effort. Martin Woollacott, in the Guardian, says there is a danger of failing to foresee the difficult problems that will follow in the wake of peace. Refugees will not go back to Kosovo – they will no longer be the same people and Kosovo will no longer be the same place. Better, yes, in that Kosovans will be freer to determine certain things. Potentially dangerous for them, because many other things may be beyond their determination. [West lays groundwork for rebuilding Kosovo + Post-war peace plans are easier said than done – www.guardian.co.uk; NATO plans begin now for refugee return to Kosovo – www.ap.org]

ALBANIA: MORE ARRIVE, OTHERS FOLLOW 23 Apr. 99 – After days of relative quiet at the Yugoslav-Albanian border, almost 1,000 people from Kosovo walked across to safety yesterday, reports CNN. Most of them were from Metrovica, a city Pristina. The refugees said that over the past few days, they had walked for more than 160 km. The refugees say they were told by paramilitary soldiers that they would be killed if they didn't leave Metrovica. But then, they said, as they approached the border, they were turned back for a time by Yugoslav authorities. The refugees talked of many more people on the move in Kosovo – so many, some said, that at times they couldn't see the road. Reuters quotes UNHCR spokesman Ray Wilkinson as saying: "From preliminary interviews...I understand there could be at least two more big groups heading this way – possibly with over a thousand in each . . . But we don't know when they will come and there are still tens of thousands of people unaccounted for . . . We can only hope they reach safety soon.'' Most of yesterday's arrivals crossed in one big group after an arduous trek through Kosovo during which their numbers were slowly whittled away. [Kosovo refugees tell of 100-mile trek to Albanian border – http://cnn.com; Kosovo refugees tell of terror trek to border – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: SOME MOVE SOUTH 23 Apr. 99 – A break in the outflow has given relief workers the chance to move Kosovo's refugees to safer places in Albania and Macedonia, reports CNN. In Albania, trucks and buses have been able to move more than 20,000 refugees away from Kukes, toward Tirana and Durres, over the past three days. "In order to be ready for the new influx of refugees, we want to move these people towards the south, where they will have better facilities," said UNHCR spokeswoman Roxana Jafari. Despite the danger of border clashes, some are reluctant to leave the area. They are waiting for news of relatives inside Kosovo. But after a week in the cold, muddy camps, others are ready for a change of scenery. The Washington Post reports the Albanian government and UNHCR have redoubled efforts to shift the refugee population to the west and south – mostly by trucking them over the one narrow, ill-paved mountain road. As a matter of policy, UNHCR tries to move refugees away from international borders where they might be exposed to further risks of war. AFP reports thousands of Kosovan refugees are clinging on to their beloved tractors which brought them to Albania and refuse to budge. UNHCR says 1,500 tractors refuse to go. [Aid groups move refugees away from borders – http://cnn.com; Refugees Uprooted Yet Again In Albania – www.washingtonpost.com; Kosovar refugees cling to their beloved tractors – www.afp.com]

MACEDONIA: UN GETS TO MALINA 23 Apr. 99 - UN relief workers reached the mountain village of Malina yesterday where several thousand Kosovo refugees had been stranded in freezing temperatures while Macedonian police turned back truckloads of aid, reports Reuters. Border guards this week repeatedly refused to allow convoys to travel to the village because the route passed through some 50 metres of Yugoslav territory. "We did take a full convoy of blankets, food, water and baby food," said UNHCR spokeswoman Paula Ghedini, adding that relief workers were bracing for the arrival of 10,000 more people. Lindsey Davis of WFP said there were fewer refugees than expected in the village – a few thousand rather than the 6,000 reported earlier. Macedonian police had been ferrying them to nearby villages to relieve the pressure. A television crew earlier found refugees crammed into the village, many sleeping with animals in sheds, and some 350 living in the village school. They also saw Macedonian police evacuating refugees in trucks and wagons. Many of the refugees were elderly or children and nearly all of them were weeping. They had come from the southern Kosovo towns of Gnjilane and Vitina. Ghedini said earlier that one child had already died of exposure. The Financial Times also reports this. BBC News reports UNHCR was warning of a humanitarian disaster if the authorities in Macedonia continue to prevent aid from getting to refugees near the Kosovo border. [UN agencies reach stranded refugees in Macedonia – www.reuters.com; UN access given – www.ft.com; Aid block risks lives, says UN – http://news.bbc.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: EVACUATIONS NEEDED NOW 23 Apr. 99 – Macedonia is unable to cope with the flood of refugees and must start evacuating them to third countries, relief officials said yesterday, reports AFP. "We are not only beyond capacity here, but we desperately need to start evacuating more people out of Macedonia," said UNHCR spokeswoman Paula Ghedini. There are some 130,000 Kosovo Albanians in Macedonia, Ghedini said. Over 50,000 were in camps. Meanwhile Le Monde reports the Slav population of Macedonia is in a state of shock as the ethnic Albanian exodus changes the nation's demography. The New York Times reports most of the 130,000 Kosovo Albanians who have poured in during this last month have found shelter in private homes. In cities like Skopje or Tetovo, it is common to find some connection between the helpers and the helped: a cousin is given sanctuary and he brings in some friends who also bring in some cousins. In the villages, though, most often it is strangers in a strange house. For most refugees, a room in someone's home – no matter how cramped – is preferable to the tents in the camps. Reuters adds the international media spotlight in Macedonia has all but overlooked the roughly 80,000 who have found sanctuary in the homes of ethnic Albanian relatives, friends or strangers. [Macedonia unable to cope with refugee influx: officials – www.afp.com; Refugee influx to Macedonia reaches critical threshold – www.lemonde.fr; Albanians Find Room to Harbor Refugees – www.nytimes.com; Poor Macedonian Albanians open homes to Kosovo kin – www.reuters.com]

MONTENEGRO: FEARFUL KOSOVANS MOVE ON 23 Apr. 99 – Fearful that Montenegro can no longer provide a safe haven from Serb forces, more than 1,500 Kosovo Albanians yesterday joined a refugee exodus into northwest Albania, reports AFP. "There is panic among the people," especially in the Rozaje region near Kosovo where the Yugoslav army killed six ethnic Albanians on Sunday. Meanwhile the Financial Times reports the squalor of the disused tobacco factory among the wilderness of wrecked and abandoned industrial buildings on the edge of Shkodra, the main town in the north of Albania, is unspeakable. On four storeys of a brick barracks young faces peer through the rusted bars of gaping, broken windows on to a dirt yard that has become a sea of mud mixed with diarrhoea. There is no sanitation for around 3,000 people. This abandoned factory is one of the reception points for refugees coming into Albania through Montenegro. The aid agencies are barely present as yet. [Ethnic Albanians flee Montenegro "in panic" – www.afp.com; After the exodus, refugees must suffer the squalor of the camps – www.ft.com]

KOSOVANS: MORE ADMISSIONS OFFERED 23 Apr. 99 – French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner said France would take 5,000 to 10,000 refugees from Kosovo, government sources said yesterday, reports Reuters. A group of 346 refugees arrived in France on Sunday, and 300 were due from Macedonia last night. AP adds Norway is to resume taking in Kosovo refugees today and Sweden is to receive the first of the 5,000 refugees it has agreed to accept. Reuters also reports Portugal is ready to receive 2,000 refugees from the fighting in Kosovo, said the interior minister yesterday, adding that plans had been drawn up for their arrival but the timing was up to UNHCR. [France to take 5-10,000 Kosovo refugees-minister + Portugal says ready receive 2,000 Kosovo refugees – www.reuters.com; First Kosovo refugees coming to Sweden, Norway resumes intake – www.ap.org]

KOSOVANS: LONG-TERM FOOD AID 23 Apr. 99 - US officials yesterday outlined a long-term food-aid plan for Kosovo refugees during the conflict and the reconstruction period expected to follow, reports Reuters in Washington. The open-ended US commitment is expected to meet about 70% of the food-aid needs of a refugee population that could swell to 1.6 million, said US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. The European Union also is expected to contribute to long-term relief efforts. But Hugh Parmer, head of USAID's disaster relief bureau, said: "If our allies fail to step up to the plate and take care of the rest of (the refugee) population, we will ratchet our contribution up higher." In July the US will begin monthly shipments of 11,500 tonnes of wheat flour and other food items. The monthly bill will be about US$2m to US$3m, aides said. Reuters adds the Canadian government announced US$20m in new aid yesterday for Kosovo refugees and said its humanitarian assistance could top US$67m before the crisis is over. Reuters also reports Iran yesterday launched a nationwide campaign to collect aid for Muslim ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo, said Iranian television. [US pledges long-term food aid for Kosovo refugees + Canada sets C$30 million in new aid for Kosovo + Iran launches aid campaign for Kosovo refugees – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVANS: NEIGHBOURS MAY NEED $2bn 23 Apr. 99 – Countries affected by the Kosovo crisis could need up to US$2bn in aid, without taking into account reconstruction costs in Yugoslavia itself, World Bank president James Wolfensohn said yesterday, reports AFP in Washington. A study prepared by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suggested Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary would need between US$600m and US$2bn, Wolfensohn told a press conference. The World Bank and IMF are to co-chair a meeting on aid for these countries next week. Wolfensohn said he hoped that UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata would attend, adding that the most urgent problem was the refugee burden on Albania and Macedonia. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports Wolfensohn and his IMF counterpart, Michel Camdessus, plan to meet early next week with Ogata to discuss immediate needs for relief funding in the region. [World Bank sees Balkans aid need up to 2 billion dollars – www.afp.com; Macedonia, Albania may need 2 billion dollars from World Bank – www.dpa.com]

KOSOVANS: NEWSPAPER RELAUNCHED 23 Apr. 99 - Only weeks after the offices of Kosovo's main Albanian-language newspaper were razed by Serbian police, the daily Koha Ditore has been relaunched in a dingy back room in neighbouring Macedonia, reports Reuters. Moved temporarily to Tetovo, Koha staff raced to make yesterday's deadline to revive the paper as a two-month pilot project in six European countries starting today – one month after its shutdown in Kosovo. Editors dispatched text for the new edition by Internet to Frankfurt for an initial print run of 25,000 and distribution in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Britain and Italy, where many of the Kosovo Albanian diaspora live. From next week, free copies are to be circulated among the hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees in camps in Macedonia and Albania. Editor Baton Haxhiu said the paper aimed to reinstil dignity and hope among refugees, help defuse ethnic tension in Macedonia, and encourage debate on establishing democracy in Kosovo. [Leading Kosovo Albanian daily relaunched abroad – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVANS: ALLOW CHOICE OF SOLUTIONS 23 Apr. 99 – Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, may be mistaken when she states that the "only solution" for Kosovar refugees is repatriation so as not to "endorse the ethnic cleansing that has already taken place," says professor Arthur Helton in a letter to the Financial Times. Refugees have become the centrepiece of the conflict in Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic's forces are brutally uprooting and expelling them, and NATO vows to return them. The only missing perspectives are those of the refugees, who have become, in some sense, pawns of war. For this reason, they should be given basic choices. Specifically, a protected internal enclave should be established so that at least some Kosovans can remain. Albania and Macedonia should of course, be assisted in fulfilling their obligations to receive and treat the refugees humanely. But NATO countries should share this responsibility by offering to relocate some of them. Many refugees may repatriate voluntarily after the conflict ends. But many who have been treated atrociously may not wish to return, and they should instead be offered resettlement. An array of outcomes is needed to ensure respect of the human dignity of the Kosovars, says the letter.
 
Global

KOSOVO SHOULD NOT ECLIPSE OTHERS -BELLAMY 23 Apr. 99 – The Kosovo refugee crisis should not overshadow the fate of 22 million people displaced by wars and civil strife in other parts of world, the head of UNICEF said yesterday, reports AFP. Certainly, the Kosovo crisis "merits an immediate and generous response," said Carol Bellamy in a written statement. However, "relatively little attention has been paid to similar conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone, Eritrea and Ethiopia and many other places where thousands of persons are displaced from their homes, tortured and killed every day," Bellamy said. In most cases, the people displaced are women and children, Bellamy noted. She warned against letting news headlines dictate the allocation of humanitarian aid to those crises that seem to attract the most media coverage. "Commensurate attention should be given to the situation of children and women at risk – whereever they may be," Bellamy said. [Kosovo crisis eclipsing fate of the world's 22 million refugees: UNICEF - www.afp.com]
 
This document is intended for public information purposes only. It is not an official UN document.