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

ALBANIA: BORDER SHELLING SPURS RELOCATION 27 May 99 – Serb artillery and water shortages are spurring the relocation of some 30,000 refugees away from the northern Albanian border, a senior NATO commander said yesterday, reports AP. "In the open, tents don't offer much protection from shrapnel. The last thing I want is the Serbs lobbing a few rounds into this place," said Lt-Gen John Reith, head of NATO's humanitarian effort in Albania. On a visit to Kukes, Reith said Serb forces in Kosovo were digging in close to the frontier crossing at Morini, some 30 km away. Some 300 refugees left a Kukes camp yesterday, the second day of the organised relocation. Several hundred refugees also crossed the border yesterday. The New York Times reports fighting in Kosovo spread yesterday to four small villages inside Albania, which Western European and Kosovo rebel officials said were shelled by Yugoslav army forces from inside Kosovo. Two people died, they said. "It proves once again how volatile the security situation is up there and how urgent it is to get those people out of the tented camps," said Melita Cunjic, a UNHCR spokeswoman. "If the tented camps were to be shelled, there would be unbelievable casualties." The Independent adds KLA fighters and Serb forces engaged in heavy combat on the border yesterday, near refugees. [Water shortage, Serb artillery to speed refugee relocation – www.ap.org; 2 Die as Shelling Spills Over Into Albania From Kosovo – www.nytimes.com; KLA in fierce battle on border – www.independent.co.uk]

ALBANIA: DONORS PLEDGE $200m 27 May 1999 – A group of 24 countries and 15 international organisations has pledged US$200m to Albania to help it meet external debt payments this year, the World Bank announced in Washington yesterday, reports AFP. The assistance will enable Albania to carry on with economic reform and cover costs incurred by the Kosovo crisis, the bank said, following a donors' meeting in Brussels. Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko briefed the meeting on the burden placed on the state, economy and society by an unprecedented influx of refugees from Kosovo, which has increased the Albanian population by 15%. He said maintaining stability while hosting the refugees was a priority. He recognised the importance of humanitarian aid for the refugees but urged donors that such aid needed to be complemented by more support to the state. The World Bank said participants acknowledged steps taken by the government to allocate public resources to host refugees while preserving overall control of expenditures. [International community pledges 200 million dollars to Albania – www.afp.com]

MACEDONIA: 'PRESIDENT' RUGOVA CHEERED 27 May 1999 – Albanian Kosovans poured out of their tents in jubilant celebration yesterday to greet moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, making his first visit to a refugee camp, reports CNN. The refugees chanted Rugova's name and waved the victory sign as the popular leader made his way through the main Stenkovec camp. Rugova also stopped by the Blace border crossing, and was expected to meet Macedonian leaders. Meanwhile another 8,000 refugees arrived from Kosovo yesterday rapidly filling camps. Rugova said NATO's plans for an international peacekeeping force were necessary to ensure the safe return of Kosovo's Albanians to their homes. In Belgrade, Yugoslavia's newly appointed minister for refugees, Bratislava Morina, said her government wanted the refugees to return to their homes. BBC News reports large, cheering crowds gre>

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camps. For many, he is their president-in-exile. The Washington Post also reports. The Independent adds that thousands of Kosovans begged Rugova to stop them from being forced out of their refugee camps and dispersed all over the world. [Ethnic Albanian leader tours Macedonian refugee camp – http://cnn.com; Refugees greet Rugova – http://news.bbc.co.uk; Letter From Macedonia – www.washingtonpost.com; Exiles plead with Rugova to stay put – www.independent.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: PRESIDENT SAYS 200,000 CAPACITY 27 May 99 – Macedonia, struggling to deal with some 240,000 refugees from Kosovo, is unable to accommodate more than 200,000, Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov said in an interview in Le Monde, reports Reuters. Gligorov told the French evening paper that more than 300,000 refugees had poured into his country or crossed it since NATO began bombing Yugoslavia two months ago, which he said was "a figure far exceeding our capacities." "It all depends on the aid we will be granted. Taking into account the current situation, the maximum number of refugees we can accommodate is 200,000," he said. Le Monde also reports Kosovans in Macedonia now make up over 10% of the population. Analysts say Kosovo could be completely emptied of ethnic Albanians by mid-summer, given the current rate of arrivals and their organised nature. [Macedonian president says refugee ceiling 200,000 – www.reuters.com; "We don't chose our neighbours, but we accept them" + Macedonian camps can't cope with more refugees waves – www.lemonde.fr]

MACEDONIA: MORE EVACUATIONS, NOT 'SHOPPING' 27 May 99 – Who goes where can be like a lottery. Names in a database get matched with 39 countries, some familiar and others far-flung, reports AP in Blace. Deciding to go can be tough. And almost everyone wants to return to Kosovo quickly. But as the NATO bombing campaign continues, more and more refugees are signing up for a peaceful life in a foreign land. By far the most popular destinations are Germany and Switzerland, where so many of the Kosovo refugees have family. Germany has offered to take in 15,000 refugees, the highest quota behind the United States and Turkey, with 20,000 each. Trying to match up families is the main goal of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which is running the evacuation programme with host countries and UNHCR. It also gives preference to the sick, elderly and mothers with small children. Those who don't like the country assigned can wait for a second offer, but organisers are starting to discourage that. "We're trying to cut back on the country shopping," said Michael Barton, an IOM spokesman. "This is not an immigration programme where people are making lifelong decisions. The point is to get vulnerable people to a safe place as quickly as possible." So far, 62,000 refugees have departed for host countries, organisers say, and the combined quotas leave room for 73,000 more. [Deciding to leave Balkans difficult for many Kosovo refugees – www.ap.org]

ITALY: HUNDREDS ON THE WAY 27 May 1999 – About 1,000 ethnic Albanian refugees, most of them from Kosovo, set out yesterday for southeast Italy from Albania and Montenegro, police said, reports AFP. Authorities detained 600 refugees around midday yesterday followed by 100 others who were hidden in a truck on a ferry operating between the Albanian port of Durres and Otranto. While most of the illegal migrants were Kosovo refugees, mostly women and children, there were also Serbs, Kurds and Albanians, police said. Italian customs officials said that 220 other refugees from Montenegro aboard the ship "Fortuna" were expected to arrive in Bari late yesterday under Italian navy escort. Smugglers abandoned the ship in international waters, while a second boat with about 100 refugees was spotted by the navy heading for the Italian coast. Italian authorities have detained over the past days some 800 Kosovars who arrived in Brindisi with false documents after traveling by ferry. Another group of 110 Kosovars arrived in southeastern Italy Tuesday on board a raft and asked Italian authorities to grant them political asylum. [1,000 ethnic Albanians head for southern Italy – www.afp.com]

ITALY: FIVE DIE IN COLLISION 27 May 99 – Five people died and at least 18 were injured today when an Italian patrol vessel collided with a dinghy filled with refugees crossing the Adriatic Sea from Albania, authorities said, reports AP. The victims were believed to Albanians from Albania or Kosovo, said authorities from Italy's tax police division, which, along with the coast guard, patrols the nation's seacoasts. [Five dead as Italian vessel collides with refugee dinghy; the victims – www.ap.org]

KOSOVANS: UNHCR PLANS FOR A MILLION 27 May 1999 – UNHCR yesterday said it was now preparing for the total number of refugees to spill out of Kosovo into neighbouring countries to reach one million, reports Reuters. UNHCR special envoy Dennis McNamara said that to handle the situation a concerted effort was needed by local governments and the international community to come through with promised aid, build more camps and keep political disputes to a minimum. "This is a manageable refugee crisis. We have had bigger numbers in worse situations. But we need...cooperation," he said, speaking as a new wave of ethnic Albanian refugees appeared to be building inside Kosovo. Altogether close to 250,000 refugees have fled to Macedonia and 440,000 to Albania, international organisations say. "We are going to go out with a revised appeal for the region with an enlarged planning figure of over one million refugees. That doesn't mean this is going to happen, but that's our planning figure...and we may have to go higher." McNamara said the UNHCR was ready to spend $4.5 million on the refugees in Macedonia but that other financial backing was needed from the international community to shore up the country. "We will cover the refugee costs of the Macedonian government," he said. [Spillover of 1 million Kosovo refugees seen – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVANS: SAFE, SPEEDY RETURNS -ANNAN 27 May 99 – I have just spent two heartrending days with the refugees of Kosovo, says Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune. I went to the refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia and to the borders of Kosovo to see their suffering, to express the UN's solidarity with the victims of brutality and ''ethnic cleansing'' and to tell them the UN is helping them now but also preparing for their return in safe and secure conditions. I urged them to be strong, to seek solace in the knowledge that in these camps they could sleep without fear, and to find hope in the fact that the entire world has been moved by their plight. What I saw in those camps reinforced my profound outrage and renewed my conviction that we must find a solution as soon as possible – a solution that secures the safe and speedy return of this people to their homes, with their political and human rights respected. The international community is united in its pursuit of a peace that allows this. How that peace is achieved is now the focus of intensive negotiations. The UN is reinforcing aid efforts across the board. The Kosovo crisis is a crucial test for the international community. With the eyes of the world on us, it is imperative that we aid the uprooted and brutalised people of Kosovo now, and return them to their homes swiftly and safely. Le Monde in a feature reports refugees saying they dread returning and seeing what they have lost. They wonder if they can live together with the Serbs again. [Hurry Now to Peace That Gets the Kosovars Home – www.iht.com; Kosovan apprehensive about return – www.lemonde.fr]

KOSOVANS: 'YOU WILL RETURN,' SAYS CLINTON 27 May 99 – US President Bill Clinton has vowed that Kosovo's refugees would return home but warned them it would take time, reports Reuters. "The campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo will end . . . You will return," he said in a broadcast today for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to the more than 700,000 refugees and the hundreds of thousands homeless within Kosovo. Meanwhile The Times reports Clinton is now ready to consider a full-scale land war against Serb forces in Kosovo, sending up to 90,000 combat troops from America, if no peace settlement emerges within three weeks. The timetable is being dictated by NATO's determination to start returning refugees to their homes in Kosovo before the winter. The Washington Post adds NATO military commanders won political approval yesterday to attack some of Yugoslavia's most sensitive sites after a presentation by Gen. Wesley Clark. A European NATO ambassador said it was urgent to pressure Belgrade now: "There is a narrow time frame, maybe four to six weeks, to start moving ahead with a resettlement process that can get the refugees back to Kosovo before next winter." Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's envoy for Kosovo, also in the Washington Post, warns more bombing makes it pointless to plan a return of refugees. What will they come back to – homes in debris, without electricity or water? Where will they find jobs? [Clinton tells Kosovo refugees ``you will return'' – www.reuters.com; Clinton to order 90,000 troops to Kosovo – www.the-times.co.uk; NATO Approves Attacks on Sensitive Sites + 'Impossible to Talk Peace With Bombs Falling'- www.washingtonpost.com]

KOSOVANS: MILOSEVIC INDICTED? 27 May 1999 – The International war crimes tribunal plans to announce today that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been indicted for his role in atrocities and mass deportations carried out by military forces under his command in Kosovo, tribunal sources said yesterday, reports the Washington Post. The historic indictment could include multiple counts of crimes against humanity and possibly genocide perpetrated against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population, the sources said. And it would place personal responsibility for such war crimes squarely on Milosevic. Yugoslav army and Serbian police forces have driven more than 800,000 ethnic Albanian civilians from their homes Kosovo in a brutal campaign to suppress ethnic Albanian guerrillas. Thousands of civilians have been executed, tortured or raped, according to reports from refugees, humanitarian aid workers and journalists. BBC News reports Milosevic is likely to be accused of directing massacres and expulsions during the Bosnian war. Reuters adds lawyers in the United States yesterday said two Kosovo refugees have filed suit in federal court in Boston seeking unspecified damages from Milosevic for genocide, torture, pillage, rape and killing their families. Meanwhile the New York Times reports US officials yesterday said the United States was willing to reopen contacts with Milosevic if it might hasten the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the return of refugees. [War Crimes Panel Is Poised to Indict Yugoslav President – www.washingtonpost.com; Milosevic accused of massacres – http://news.bbc.co.uk; Two sue Milosevic in U.S. court over genocide – www.reuters.com; A Role for Serb in Peace Talks Isn't Ruled Out – www.nytimes.com]

YUGOSLAVIA: 350,000 SERBS ABROAD 27 May 99 Since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the onset of sanctions, some 350,000 Serbs have left Yugoslavia, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Most of those who left were young and educated. Many of those remaining are plotting their escapes. This has left Serbia largely in the hands of the older generations, people who came of age under communism and are sceptical of Western-style democracy. They vote for incumbents and constitute the backbone of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's constituency. The decision to leave, however, is not as easy as it once was. Yugoslavia's borders have been closed to draft-age men since airstrikes began. Moreover, the countries they wish to emigrate to – the United States, Canada, Britain, and Germany – are intent on bombing the Serbs into submission. Others still are returning from abroad, saying they want to join the Army. [As young Serbs flee, seniors rule – www.csmonitor.com]

KOSOVO NOTES 27 May 1999 – AP reports two ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo were killed and two others seriously injured in a car accident in Calgary, Canada. Reuters reports a group of 105 Kosovo refugees arrived in Malta late on Tuesday under an arrangement between the Maltese government and UNHCR. AP reports a plane loaded with humanitarian supplies for Kosovo refugees, a gift from Moscow city government, left for Macedonia yesterday, said a news agency.

This document is intended for public information purposes only. It is not an official UN document.