AT A GLANCE
- High Commissioner Sadako Ogata meets with KFOR commander
and visits displaced minorities and returnees at the close of a two-day visit to Kosovo.
- As the number of refugees in Albania steadily decreases,
UNHCR is making arrangements to move to Kosovo equipment and relief materials from offices
and camps which have closed down.
- UNHCR plans to begin organized repatriation from Montenegro
on Wednesday.
- The number of Kosovar returnees has topped 600,000, with
16,700 heading home on Monday from Albania, the FYR of Macedonia and Montenegro.
- The estimated number of Kosovo Albanian refugees and
displaced people in the region has dropped to 150,100, including 22,200 in Montenegro,
19,000 in FYR of Macedonia, 91,500 in Albania and 17,400 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
HIGH COMMISSIONER’S VISIT
On the second day of her visit to Kosovo, High
Commissioner Sadako Ogata met with General Mike Jackson, commander of international troops
in Kosovo, or KFOR.
Later on Tuesday, she will visit a school in Kosovo Polje
outside Pristina, where some 5,000 members of the minority Roma population have sought
refuge. The Roma people have been accused of collaborating with Serbs during the conflict
and many have been targets of violence as a result of these accusations.
The High Commissioner will also stop at Urosevac, one of
the first major returnee destinations, on her way back to Skopje at the close of her
two-day visit to Kosovo — her fourth since the conflict started in the spring of last
year and the first since UNHCR resumed operations in the Serbian province three weeks ago.
On Monday, Ogata led a convoy of 190 returnees from the
FYR of Macedonia bound for Urosevac and Pristina. She then made an aerial survey of
central and western Kosovo and stopped at Pec and Prizren, where UNHCR has reopened
offices.
In Prizren, she met with a KFOR German general who spoke
of the need for the early return of teachers, doctors and other professionals. The general
also spoke of the need for a police force. KFOR has been guarding prisons and arresting
obvious looters and other criminals.
At a nearby monastery, Ogata met with the Orthodox priest
who has been helping more than 100 Serbs and others who have taken refuge there. Most of
the people she saw were elderly, wanting desperately to be evacuated. She spoke to a
younger woman with a child; the woman said that her husband, a policeman, was killed in
front of her eyes by Albanians.
In Pec, the High Commissioner met with officers of the
Italian and Spanish KFOR contingents. She expressed shock at the level of destruction she
saw during a tour of Pec, a lively cosmopolitan town of 68,000 people before the war. The
KFOR officers told her they had difficulty protecting the minority Serb and Roma
populations in Pec. She talked with some families staying in tents alongside their
destroyed homes near the UNHCR office.
ALBANIA
With the dwindling number of refugees, UNHCR, other UN
agencies, NGOs and AFOR are consolidating the remaining Kosovars into a small number of
collective centers and tented camps. Under this plan, facilities with the best living
conditions will be used to shelter any refugees remaining through the winter.
The United States and Italy have turned over
administration of their campsites to UNHCR and others are moving to do the same. However,
as looting and other security problems emerge, UNHCR has been compelled to move to
safeguard relief materials and equipment, including tents, plastic sheeting, generators
and water purification systems. It is planned to transfer much of this badly needed
equipment to Kosovo.
Last week, the Emergency Management Group (EMG) discussed
the disposition of camp assets as well as responsibility for dismantling camps and
repairing related ecological damage. The EMG includes representatives of UN and other
intergovernmental agencies, donor countries, the Albanian government and the international
security force in Albania, called AFOR.
UNHCR and government officials are discussing which camp
assets can be left behind for use by the Albanian authorities and which can be transferred
to Kosovo.
On Monday, 12,200 refugees repatriated from Albania to
Kosovo, through the Morini crossing near Kukes, including 675 refugees who joined UNHCR
and AFOR organized convoys. The convoys went to Prizren, Pristina and Urosevac.
Refugees from central and southern Albania continue to
board trains for Mjeda on the outskirts of Shkodra, from where they are moved up to the
northeastern border town of Kukes en route home. On Monday, AFOR helicopters and fixed
wing aircraft also transported 379 refugees from camps in Korce in southeastern Albania
directly to Kukes.
Since returns started on 15 June, nearly 352,000 refugees
have returned to Kosovo from Albania. More than 200,000 returnees have taken advantage of
the repatriation package which is handed out by UNHCR and its partners at a distribution
point between Kukes and the Morini border crossing.
A total of 2,000 metric tons of food from the World Food
Program and other aid agencies has so far been distributed there to returnees, along with
35,284 plastic sheets, 9,200 jerry cans and 52,702 hygienic kits provided by UNHCR.
FYR of MACEDONIA
Around 3,600 refugees returned home from the FYR of
Macedonia to Kosovo, bringing the overall count of returnees to 203,100. The number of
refugees estimated to be remaining in the FYR of Macedonia has fallen below 20,000.
Returns continued during the night between Monday and
Tuesday — an indication of the continued eagerness of refugees to go home. Between
midnight and 7 a.m. alone, 950 returnees crossed the main immigration control at Blace.
Shortly thereafter, on Tuesday morning, a convoy organized by UNHCR and IOM took an
additional 215 refugees back to Pristina and Urosevac. From Pristina, secondary transport
is being arranged for those returnees whose homes are in Podujevo,
Glogovac and Lipljan.
UNHCR Skopje continued to deliver relief aid directly to
Kosovo. On Tuesday, 29 trucks moved out of Skopje carrying mainly tents but also hygienic
parcels, blankets and mattresses. Six trucks went to Prizren, eight to Djakovica, six to
Pec and nine to Pristina.
MONTENEGRO
UNHCR is planning to begin organized repatriation of
Kosovars from Montenegro on Wednesday July 7.
On Monday, 870 refugees returned spontaneously — the
first time in weeks that the number has gone under 1,000. The estimated 48,000 who have
gone back so far went in their own vehicles or rented taxis and minivans. UNHCR expects
most of those remaining in Montenegro will need transport assistance.
Also on Monday, 39 members of minority groups entered
Montenegro from Kosovo, including 25 Roma who were escorted by KFOR troops to the border.
They came from a village in Istok, where they said that several members of their families
had been killed by ethnic Albanians before they could be evacuated.
UNHCR-IOM HUMANITARIAN EVACUATION PROGRAM
Arrangements are being worked out to start the first
voluntary repatriation movements from Europe and other areas to which Albanians were
evacuated during the crisis.
Around 91,000 refugees were flown to third countries from
the FYR of Macedonia, under the humanitarian evacuation program of UNHCR and the
International Organization for Migration. Many have approached UNHCR, IOM and their host
governments, asking for assistance to organize their return.
In addition, numerous spontaneous returns are reported to
have taken place already from Turkey, mainly of refugees who had also arrived
spontaneously, rather than under the evacuation program. Turkey took in altogether around
17,700 refugees from Kosovo, including 8,340 under the evacuation program. So far, around
7,600 refugees are reported to have gone back to Kosovo on their own, leaving some 10,100,
including around 6,500 in the Kirklareli camp, where most of those who came to Turkey
under the evacuation program are housed.
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Document compiled
by Dr S D Stein