Sanctuary for Refugees: Fury Over Britain's Failure
Sydney Morning Herald

1 May 1999

As the second plane-load of Kosovan refugees landed at East Midlands airport with 169 people aboard, the German Government launched a furious attack on Britain for its lack of generosity in taking victims of Serb ethnic cleansing.

Mr Peter Struck, chief whip in the German Parliament of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's Social Democrats, said it was "incredible" Britain was being so hesitant in taking displaced ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and declared Germany would not take any more until other European Union countries did their bit.

England and France, especially, had taken hardly any refugees. "That's just incredible," he said.

Germany has taken in almost 10,000 Kosovars, making it the country which has shown the most hospitality. Britain has accepted 330 and France 2,000.

Mr Struck's outburst comes amid pleas from countries bordering Kosovo and bearing the brunt of the refugee exodus that they are now reaching crisis point.

Five thousand refugees arrived in Macedonia on Thursday, were taken to an unfinished refugee camp with no sanitation and told to sleep under plastic sheets because there was nowhere to house them.

"We are on the brink of a catastrophe," said a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

A Home Office spokeswoman rejected the German criticisms. "We have responded positively and quickly to the requests we have received from UNHCR ... and we shall continue to do so," she said.

But in the House of Commons, Ulster Unionist MPs questioned ministers as to why offers of help had not so far been taken up: "The people of Omagh, who suffered from bombing, are very keen to open their town and community to Kosovan refugees out of sympathy."

As tension mounted over Britain's stance, Ms Clare Short, the British International Development Secretary, engaged in sharp exchanges with the Commons International Development Committee, whose members returned on Thursday from a fact-finding visit to refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania.

Firmly rejecting calls from MPs for Britain to offer sanctuary to more Kosovan refugees, she insisted most of those fleeing the conflict did not want to leave for third countries.