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

KOSOVANS: 100,000 RETURN – UNHCR 21 Jun. 99 – UNHCR officials said yesterday more than 100,000 Kosovan Albanian refugees had now returned to Kosovo, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "This morning we passed the 100,000 mark," said UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville. He said more than 4,000 refugees had crossed the borders by 7:30 am yesterday, joining some 69,000 Kosovan refugees from Albania and some 30,000 from Macedonia who had already returned to Kosovo in recent days. The Los Angeles Times reports refugee officials said about 130,000 people have returned to Kosovo in the last five days, and the pace is building. [UN: More than 100,000 Kosovar Albanian refugees back in Kosovo – www.dpa.com; For Refugees, Back Home 'Looks Like a Dream' – www.latimes.com]

KOSOVANS: UNHCR REPATRIATION IN 2 WEEKS 21 Jun. 99 – UNHCR plans to start helping Kosovo refugees go back in two weeks' time and most of them will return to what is left of their homes before winter, a UNHCR official said Friday, reports Reuters in Geneva. But UNHCR is not preventing people from returning independently and is allowing them to take food, water and even tents with them, said Assistant High Commissioner Soren Jessen-Petersen after touring Kosovo. He said first indications showed there were "significantly fewer" refugees hiding within Kosovo than the 600,000 estimated by NATO. Jessen-Petersen said he was worried about the "tractor people" – refugees from rural areas returning to mined areas. Jessen-Petersen added that UNHCR was worried about the flight of Serb inhabitants from Kosovo. Reuters adds Dennis McNamara, UNHCR's Balkan envoy, said the agency was stepping up a drive to warn ethnic Albanians in Macedonia and Albania that it was not safe to go home. [Kosovo refugees can return in two weeks; UN + UNHCR hopes Kosovo return does not turn into flood – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVO: RETURNEES FACE HARSH CONDITIONS 21 Jun. 99 – Villagers arriving in southern Kosovo have found their houses in ruins – both from Serbian pillaging and NATO bombing – no electricity or drinking water and, worst of all, hardly any food, reports the New York Times. Villages have been appealing to UNHCR for food and other aid. UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville said he and other aid workers feared the swift return of the refugees would overwhelm resources, diverting aid from homeless refugees inside Kosovo who are in much more desperate straits. The Washington Post reports ethnic Albanians yesterday morning went to Grace in northern Kosovo with revenge on their minds. Serbs had left the night before. Ethnic Albanians loading stoves on wheelbarrows, sofas on horse-drawn wagons and roof tiles and window panes on tractor carts. And as they finished stripping each house, they set it ablaze. Finally, they returned to their own ransacked and charred village across the highway. [Everything in Ruins and Little to Eat – www.nytimes.com; Returning Exiles Take Revenge in Serbian Village – www.washingtonpost.com]

KOSOVANS: AID TO RETURNEES 21 Jun. 99 – The European Union is preparing US$1.5bn in humanitarian aid for refugees returning to Kosovo and has set a donors conference for July, officials said Saturday at a summit of the world's richest nations and Russia, reports AP in Germany. It remained unclear, however, how billions of dollars of aid can be pumped into Kosovo while ensuring it does not benefit the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Guenther Burghardt, a political director at the European Commission, said the EU was readying initial aid of US$480m a year over three years in "humanitarian assistance" covering the immediate needs of returning refugees. However, that money would pay for rebuilding roads and other items that may not be seen as strictly humanitarian aid, he acknowledged. The EC said it will soon open a Kosovo aid agency in Pristina. The Financial Times reports Japanese officials said Tokyo was prepared to contribute US$200m to the total reconstruction effort – US$40m to help refugees back into Kosovo, US$60m in assistance to Albania and Macedonia, and US$100m for the Balkans as a whole. [EU to form Kosovo agency; commits to dlrs 1.5 billion in aid – www.ap.org; Allies agree need for reconstruction – www.ft.com]

KOSOVANS: PATIENTS NEED EVACUATION 21 Jun. 99 – Hundreds of ethnic Albanian refugees desperately needing effective medical care could die unless the world community keeps its doors open to evacuees, aid workers said yesterday, reports Reuters. Unable to receive adequate treatment in the camps and with host country Macedonia, and much less Kosovo, in no position to help, medical officials say that many could die unless the international community wakes up to the danger. "If they are treated on time, they can recover but many are in life-threatening situations," said Istvan Szilard, of the International Organisation for Migration. Medical organisations calculate there are some 700 such patients in the camps dotting Macedonia's frontier with Kosovo in urgent need of the sort of care that can be obtained only abroad. There could be more living with host ethnic Albanian families in Macedonia, Szilard said. [Aid workers fear for sick Kosovo refugees – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVO: WFP BEGINS AIRDROPS 21 Jun. 99 – WFP began taking food by helicopter to thousands of ethnic Albanians hiding out in the mountains of Kosovo yesterday, reports Reuters. "Many of the roads are inaccessible due to mines, so in the short-term we're mobilising helicopters to bring emergency food to (them) as quickly as possible," said WFP spokeswoman Abby Spring. She said two helicopters would make up to four runs a day from Skopje, with the initial flights yesterday to an area between Pec and Klim. "We've heard there are about 120,000 displaced persons living in this rural area and we don't know what access they've had to food . . . We are going to be distributing about 3,000 humanitarian daily rations. Obviously we are not going reach them all (now), so we are going to target the most vulnerable," Spring said in Pristina. Meanwhile AFP reports UN aid groups said Friday the situation in Kosovo was not as bad as first feared, but a few devastated areas and a lack of information on areas still in Serb hands meant a long operation lay ahead. Basic shelter is available in Pristina and in much of the southern part of Kosovo, especially in the towns, UNHCR officials said. [UN launches food airlift to Kosovo mountains – www.reuters.com; Kosovo aid needs not as bad as feared, so far – www.afp.com]

KOSOVO: 60,000 'FOUND' IN NORTH 21 Jun. 99 – A British newspaper yesterday said that NATO troops have found 60,000 Albanian refugees held by Serb forces in burnt-out villages transformed into concentration camps in northern Kosovo, reports AFP. The Sunday Telegraph said the Albanian families were rounded up from mountain hideouts in a Serb operation in mid-April and driven to five ransacked villages near Podujevo. They were to be held at the camp, known as Saykovac, to be used as human shields in the event of a ground war with NATO, said the paper. Most of the Serb forces had deserted the area by the time NATO troops arrived, but the allied soldiers advised the refugees, many gaunt and weak with hunger and illness, to stay put until all Serb forces had withdrawn from Kosovo, said the paper. [60,000 Kosovars held in Serb 'concentration camps': press – www.afp.com]

ALBANIA: NATO EXPECTS ORGANISED RETURN 21 Jun. 99 – NATO said yesterday a further 17,500 refugees had returned to Kosovo from Albania on Saturday, against its advice and aid agencies', reports Reuters. Captain Wolfgang Greven, a spokesman for NATO's Albania force, AFOR said it hoped the flow would subside once plans for an organised repatriation were published within days. Greven said many of the refugees who had returned had their own vehicles or enough money to rent or buy a car. But many of the 400,000 Kosovo refugees who remain in Albania were not in this category. They would be encouraged to wait for the official repatriation programme when they heard more details about it. "Once the repatriation plan is published, and that may be tomorrow, you will find that UNHCR and the other NGOs as well as NATO AFOR will figure out a very good plan to make the return of refugees safe,'' he said. Reuters also reports Greven said NATO was working on special television advertisements to warn refugees of the dangers of landmines in Kosovo. Dozens of refugees have been wounded by mines or booby traps as they tried to get back home. [NATO hopeful refugees will await organised return + NATO turns to TV to warn Kosovo refugees on mines – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: MOST RETURN FROM KUKES 21 Jun. 99 – Two-thirds of the ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo who were sheltering in camps at Kukes have returned to their homes since Tuesday, UNHCR said Friday, reports AFP. "Between 11,000 and 12,000 refugees remain in the camps," said Rupert Colville, UNHCR's spokesman in Kukes, northern Albania. Three or four of the seven camps there are "practically empty" and the remaining refugees are being regrouped in the other camps to make security arrangements easier, he said. "The most worrying thing is that, despite our warnings, some 300 refugees have gone back into Kosovo via Qafa and Prushit in the Kruma region, which has been heavily mined by the Serbs and therefore is particularly dangerous," said Colville. Meanwhile Reuters reports Kosovo refugees unable to pay for transport home, vowed on Saturday to leave Albania just as they arrived – on foot – unless the UN ferried them back by today. [Kukes refugee camps now two-thirds empty – www.afp.com; Kosovo refugees vow to walk home if UN won't help – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: CAMP ATTACKED BY LOCALS 21 Jun – A gang of 20 armed Albanian villagers injured an Albanian guard during two attempts to loot a Kosovo refugee camp in Kukes, northern Albania, a Medecins sans Frontieres spokeswoman said Friday, reports AFP. The raid was thwarted by Albanian police whom the camp authorities called in, said Anita Kwok. "We have begun to transfer the refugees to another camp, where we can better look after their security," she said. AFP adds aid groups in Albania expressed fears about security in Kosovar refugee camps Friday after several attempts at robbery by armed Albanians that caused panic among the refugees. "Refugees' security has become a very thorny question," said UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville. "Local vultures are prowling more and more around the camps to loot them." [Armed Albanians injure one in refugee camp: MSF + Armed robbers cause security fear in refugee camps – www.afp.com]

MACEDONIA: OUTFLOW OVERTAKES PLANS 21 Jun. 99 – Such is the size of the unexpected flood of refugees home to Kosovo that refugee agencies are being forced to consider changing plans to keep refugees in Macedonia for another two weeks, reports Reuters. "The big push (to return) has started," said Peter Deck, a UNHCR protection officer in Macedonia. "We are going to have to decide soon whether we stick to the plan or start following the refugees in to give what help we can." Buses, trucks and rickety old vans, many of them with household goods and bedding piled on the roofs, waited in line yesterday at the Blace border crossing. Thirteen dollars is the going rate for the risky return ride to Kosovo and thousands of homesick ethnic Albanians paid up on Saturday. UNHCR expects to be ready to begin busing refugees back in safety within a couple of weeks but officials acknowledge their carefully laid plans are being overtaken by events. UNHCR has also completed a programme of issuing families in the refugee camps with a form of identity card. Meanwhile Reuters reports the White House said on Saturday that US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary will visit a refugee camp in Macedonia tomorrow in a show of support for ethnic Albanians waiting to return to Kosovo. [Kosovo refugees ready to pay the price of return + Clinton to visit refugee camp in Macedonia – www.reuters.com]

BOSNIA: MOST WAIT TO RETURN 21 Jun. 99 – Over 21,000 ethnic Albanian refugees in Bosnia have still not started organised returns to their homes in Kosovo as they are waiting for the security situation to stabilise, a UNHCR spokeswoman said Friday, reports Reuters. But some Muslim Slavs from Sanjak in south-western Yugoslavia have gone back, said Wendy Rappeport. Most of the Kosovo Albanian refugees said they would like to return, she said, adding: "They are waiting for the international assistance to help them get safely to Kosovo." [Some Moslems return from Bosnia, Albanians wait – www.reuters.com]

GERMANY: 31 FOUND IN VAN 21 Jun. 99 – German police yesterday stopped a suspicious looking van on a motorway in southern Germany and discovered 31 Kosovar refugees inside, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Police said the refugees had been without food for 36 hours. The Kosovars came from refugee camps in Italy, which are being closed down following the ceasefire in Kosovo. It was not immediately clear whether they contravened any laws. [German police discover 31 Kosovar Albanian refugees in small van – www.dpa.com]

Serbs

KOSOVO: HALF SERBS FLED – UNHCR 21 Jun. 99 – More than half of Kosovo's 190,000 Serbs have left the province during recent months, a UNHCR spokesman said in Geneva on Saturday, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "Some of them fled during the NATO bombing and some 70,000 Serbs have withdrawn together with the Yugoslav troops," UNHCR's Paul Stromberg said. UNHCR planned this weekend to distribute through the Yugoslav Red Cross ten truckloads of relief supplies to the Serb refugees in Montenegro and north of Kosovo. The refugees urgently needed blankets, mattresses and medical supplies. Reuters adds vehicles streamed across the border from Kosovo to Serbia on Saturday as Serb civilians and troops quit the province. For civilians in the convoys, there seemed no emotions left. The Guardian reports concern is growing that those responsible for massacres will escape by vanishing into Serbia with tens of thousands of Serb refugees. Meanwhile the Independent reports 300 Gypsies are camped at Leposavic, near the border, assisted by the Yugoslav Red Cross, after being forced to leave Vucitrn. [UNHCR: More than half of all Serbs in Kosovo leave – www.dpa.com; Serbs show few emotions in Kosovo departure – www.reuters.com; Guilty merge with refugees – www.guardian.co.uk; Civilians are 'turned back by police' – www.independent.co.uk]

KOSOVO: SOME AGREE TO RETURN 21 Jun. 99 – Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs, heeding the government's call to return home, packed into buses, tractors and cars yesterday to form a slow convoy heading from Serbia to Kosovo, reports Reuters. Others defied the government and gathered in Belgrade to protest against Saturday's appeal for all Serb refugees to return to Kosovo within 48 hours. The opposition Christian Democrats accused the government of trying to blackmail and threaten Kosovo Serbs to return. The convoy, formed by groups that gathered along the highway, was led by Serbian government ministers and local authorities who supplied the refugees with food, water and fuel for the journey. "Today and tonight we expect about 1,000 Serbs from Kosovo who are staying in the Belgrade area to go back," said Dragan Ilic, president of the Belgrade Red Cross. Most of those waiting to board buses or cars said they were glad to be going back but were angry they had been forced to leave in the first place. A convoy of more than 20 buses, escorted by NATO peacekeepers, arrived in Pristina yesterday. The Daily Telegraph reports the Serb government last night urged the thousands of Serb refugees to return to their "ancestral homelands," describing their plight as their "hardest hour." [Some Serbs head back to Kosovo, others angry – www.reuters.com; Refugees urged to return home – www.telegraph.co.uk]

SERBIA: ARRIVALS BLOCKED 21 Jun. 99 – Authorities in Serbia moved Saturday to limit the flight of tens of thousands of Serbian civilians in the Yugoslav army's wake and offered to lead them back to the war-shattered province over the next 48 hours, reports the Los Angeles Times. Police set up checkpoints in southern Serbia to prevent tractor-drawn wagons full of fearful, exhausted Serbs from travelling further north, and officials refused to give them additional fuel. The measures were part of an increasingly desperate campaign to reverse the Serbian exodus or at least limit its visibility, in hopes of minimising political damage to President Slobodan Milosevic. AP adds the Yugoslav government yesterday was trying to persuade thousands of fleeing Serb civilians to stay in Kosovo. The government has blocked attempts to set up tent cities and urged the Serbs to return to Kosovo. The Serb civilians are angry at a government they see as ignoring their plight, and which has told them to camp out in parking lots, schools, parks and open fields. [Yugoslavs Try to Limit, Conceal Serb Kosovo Exodus – www.latimes.com; Yugoslavia tries to push Serb refugees back into Kosovo – www.ap.org]

SERBIA: PROTESTS 21 Jun. 99 – Some 100 Kosovo Serb refugees, accusing the authorities of betrayal, gathered in central Belgrade yesterday, demanding aid to ease what seems a gloomy future, reports AFP. They have been arriving for days from the southern Kosovo towns of Prizren, Djakovica and Orahovac, hoping that they were leaving their hometowns only temporarily. Meanwhile AFP reports in Mladenovac, a group of Serb refugees from Suva Reka blamed government authorities and police for leaving them vulnerable, forcing them to pack up and leave Kosovo in hours. ["Forgotten" Kosovo Serbs protest in Belgrade – www.afp.com; Serb refugees accuse officials of leaving them – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVO NOTES 21 Jun. 99 Reuters reports UNHCR said on Friday there was no major movement yet of ethnic Albanian or Serb refugees back to Kosovo from eastern Montenegro. Kyodo reports a family of five ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo who are staying with relatives in Japan said Saturday they will apply for official refugee status there. Xinhua reports six Kosovan refugees were warned Friday by the Australian government to stay at Singleton Army Barracks they fled or go back home.

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