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

KOSOVANS: UNHCR-ORGANISED RETURNS TO START 25 Jun. 99 – UNHCR is to start its organised repatriation of Kosovans after being initially caught off-guard by the refugees' massive spontaneous return, a UNHCR official in Pristina said yesterday, reports AFP. Special envoy Dennis McNamara also said the evacuation of refugees from camps in Macedonia to other countries would cease in early July. "We will start to organise returns to areas that are deemed to be secure environments for the safe return of refugees," he said, adding that consultations with KFOR and the KLA had identified three main safe areas – Pristina, Prizren and Urosevac. UNHCR's decision to activate its organised repatriation plan was also prompted by the number of landmine casualties among returnees and rising incidents of unauthorised people demanding high prices to transport refugees back. McNamara said, "we will start in the coming days to organise UNHCR bus returns from the camps in Albania and Macedonia" to make sure the repatriation is as orderly and safe as possible. He added that Belgrade had asked for aid for 50,000 Kosovo Serb refugees, which was being provided. [UNHCR to start repatriating refugees to Kosovo – www.afp.com]

KOSOVANS: BE PATIENT, ANNAN URGES 25 Jun. 99 – UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed yesterday to hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees to be patient and allow the United Nations to prepare for their return home, reports Reuters. "I think the main thing at the moment is to get the refugees back in an orderly manner, to make sure that they have shelter and are prepared for winter and to settle them," Annan said in London. For the moment these human needs were the focus of the UN's attention, but reconstruction and administration would have to follow, he said. Annan said he hoped as many refugees as possible would be back in Kosovo before winter. "But we also need the time to be able to prepare the ground, to be able to prepare shelter, to be able to preposition food, for us to be able to give help to them when they get back," he said. "This is why we have been telling them to be patient." [UN's Annan urges Kosovo refugees to be patient – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVO: SOLANA 'DELIGHTED' 25 Jun. 99 – Javier Solana, NATO secretary-general, made a triumphant visit to Pristina yesterday where he lauded the alliance's ground operation in Kosovo as a tremendous success, reports the Financial Times. Clearly moved by his warm reception by Kosovo's Albanians, he said: "I'm really delighted to be in Pristina at last in a free Kosovo where justice can prevail and all the refugees can return home." Reuters quotes Solana as saying: "When I visited the refugee camps, I told them we would do everything possible to send them home . . . We have fulfilled our promise, but there is still plenty of hard work ahead." Meanwhile Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports Solana yesterday appealed to Serb residents not to leave Kosovo, but to trust KFOR to protect them. [Solana hails campaign on Pristina visit – www.ft.com; Kosovo in turmoil, Milosevic facing unrest – www.reuters.com; Solana urges Serbs to stay in Kosovo – www.dpa.com]

MACEDONIA: MOST RETURNING, 20% WON'T 25 Jun. 99 – Ethnic Albanian refugees continue to ignore pleas to stay put and are returning to Kosovo from Macedonia by the thousands daily, UNHCR said yesterday, reports Reuters. UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort said: "If they wait a little longer, they can go with us for free." Supplies are being stockpiled in several Kosovo towns to provide immediate assistance to those returning. But the Independent reports refugees' euphoria at the liberation of their homeland has begun to wear off. Now the question is: do they actually want to go back there? Most have no choice. The Macedonians would kick them out tomorrow if they could. The chances of getting to a third country are increasingly slim. But aid workers say 20% do not want to go back and 40% will wait before they do. [Refugees pour out of Macedonia by thousands daily – www.reuters.com; One in every five refugees rejects return – www.independent.co.uk]

TURKEY: OVER 2,000 GO BACK 25 Jun. 99 – A total of 2,410 Kosovo refugees have left Turkey to return home since NATO reached a military agreement with Yugoslavia, the Anatolia news agency said yesterday, reports AFP. Since the start of the NATO air campaign on Yugoslav targets, 17,694 refugees arrived to Turkey, most of them taking refuge with relatives in different parts of the country. Over 7,000 of them were housed in a refugee camp of Gaziosmanpasa. "The refugee flow out of Turkey is increasing. There have been no problems so far," Anatolia quoted customs officials in the province of Edirne on the border with Greece and Bulgaria as saying. [Over 2,000 Kosovo refugees leave Turkey for homeland – www.afp.com]

KOSOVO: MORE SERBS FLEE REPRISALS 25 Jun. 99 – The Orthodox priest locked up and left Urosevac along with 90% of his Serbian congregation after two Serb men were shot dead Tuesday night, reports the Guardian. Before that there were about 500 Serbs left in Urosevac – a tenth of their pre-war numbers. But more left each hour yesterday, either fleeing to Serbia or taking temporary shelter in the Orthodox monastery of Gracanica further north. The New York Times reports virtually every Serb in the village of Zegra left at noon yesterday after a gunfight involving Serbs and US marines. Contributing to the flight of Serbs from Kosovo are reports of violence against Serb civilians. A Serb professor and two Serb workers at the University of Pristina were found shot to death yesterday. Later a Serb and an Albanian were wounded in a gun battle when a family of Albanians returned to Pristina to find Serbs living in their homes. After the Serbs left, the Albanians, some of whom had returned to the village only yesterday morning, went from house to house, taking whatever they could. AFP reports Father Sava, head of the Decani monastery, said some 50 Serbs have been killed and about 140 kidnapped by ethnic Albanians since KFOR was deployed. He accused Belgrade of being responsible and criticised authorities for pressing Serb refugees to return to Kosovo. Up to 100,000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the recent days, he said. [Serbs flee as reprisals stoke fear – www.guardian.co.uk; Serbs Run Away, Albanians Loot, and Marines Find Peace Is Tricky – www.nytimes.com; Some 50 Serbs killed in 12 days: priest – www.afp.com]

KOSOVO: STOP SERB EXODUS – BONINO 25 Jun. 99 – The European Union needs to take "a strong initiative" to avoid a total exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, while coordinating with NATO forces, says Emma Bonino, the European commissioner for humanitarian affairs, reports the International Herald Tribune. Bonino called upon Romano Prodi, the European Commission's president-designate, "to craft a political vision in which all Balkan nations are invited to join the EU, a vision which can foster stability and a democratisation process." ''There are many Serbs who are scared, and we must avoid an exodus,'' she declared. [EU Official Urges Action to Prevent a Total Serb Exodus From Kosovo – www.iht.com]

KOSOVO: SERBS CAN'T BE PROTECTED 25 Jun. 99 – Slobodan Milosevic, Bill Clinton and many others are speaking with one voice, appealing to Serbs not to leave Kosovo and calling back those who have, says Balkans analyst Anna Husarska, in the International Herald Tribune. There are worrying indications that Serbs fleeing Kosovo may be forced out by the brutality of their ethnic Albanian neighbours. This is simple human revenge, not excusable but understandable. For a Kosovo Serb it would be naive to expect magnanimity from his ethnic Albanian neighbour. The smartest Serbs left early, in an orderly fashion. This placed them higher in the pecking order for refugee facilities in Serbia or in Serbian Bosnia. Because there will be no Serbian sectors in Kosovo, Serbs there will be vulnerable everywhere, unless they form a very compact group. Those who conducted themselves properly throughout the war might decide to stay, but perhaps won't have time to prove their innocence. In a conflict where rusty spoons are as likely weapons as the omnipresent Kalashnikovs, Apache helicopters and Humvees are not sufficient protection. Even a NATO soldier under every bed may not be enough. It would be wiser and more responsible to leave the decision about leaving or staying in Kosovo to the individual Serbs, instead of assuring them of a protection that simply cannot be. [Appealing to the Kosovo Serbs to Stay Is Irresponsible – www.iht.com]

KOSOVO: GYPSIES FLEEING REPRISALS 25 Jun. 99 – Thousands of Gypsies are fleeing their homes in Kosovo because of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians who accuse them of collaborating with their Serb oppressors, reports Reuters. Across Kosovo, Gypsies have begun streaming out of towns and villages in the third wave of refugees spawned by the ethnic conflict. NATO sources say renegade members of the Kosovo Liberation Army have joined in the violent reprisals. Dozens of Gypsy homes have been looted and burned, amid increasing reports of abductions, beatings and killings. About 3,000 frightened Gypsy refugees from across Kosovo have sought sanctuary in the past few days at a dilapidated schoolhouse in Kosovo Polje, outside Pristina. Hundreds who fled north toward Belgrade were turned back by Yugoslav forces. "We are innocent people who have done nothing wrong, yet the Albanians want to kill us all," one Gypsy man said at Kosovo Polje. "During times of ethnic strife, people look for a scapegoat . . . The Roma have a long history of being outcast, marginalised and victimised in this part of the world," said UNHCR spokeswoman Paula Ghedini. [Kosovo's Gypsies flee wave of ethnic reprisals – www.reuters.com]

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