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

ALBANIA: POLITICAL CRISIS THREATENS 20 May 1999 – A constitutional crisis threatens today to paralyse the Albanian government, hampering its diplomatic, humanitarian and military response to the Kosovo war, reports the Financial Times. The dispute is over the refusal of Rexhep Meidani, the president, to allow Pandeli Majko, the prime minister, to dismiss his interior minister. The government believes the president will be in breach of the constitution if he refuses to allow the dismissal by today. This could lead to an attempt to impeach Meidani and so trigger a prolonged crisis that would threaten Albania's stability as it struggles to cope with 430,000 Kosovan refugees and regular border incursions by the Yugoslav army. Majko decided to dismiss the interior minister, Petro Koci, last week after unrest in the south of the country. The police chief failed to quell the unrest quickly. [Political crisis engulfs Albania – www.ft.com] 

ALBANIA: DUPED, RESCUED, RETURNED 20 May 1999 – The Italian coastguard yesterday rescued 30 Kosovo refugees left by smugglers on an Albanian peninsula instead of Italy, the Albanian state news agency ATA said, reports Reuters. The refugees were put on speedboats at Vlora for the trip to Italy but were dumped instead at the Karaburuni peninsula after a short 18km trip across the bay. The Italian coastguard shipped the refugees back to Vlora and they were later taken to a nearby Kosovo refugee camp. The Guardian also reports this. Meanwhile AFP reports the Italian press agency ANSA yesterday said some 200 people, believed to be Kosovo Albanian refugees, were rescued from rocks in the Adriatic after being abandoned by smugglers. A joint operation by the Italian and Albanian naval coastguards brought them from the rocks south of Cap Linguetta, near Cap San Andrea, to Vlora. The people included many women and children. [Albanian smugglers abandon Kosovars bound for Italy – www.reuters.com; Skopje Smugglers dupe refugees – www.guardian.co.uk; 200 refugees rescued from rocks in Adriatic – www.afp.com] 

MACEDONIA: ANNAN VISITS TO REASSURE 20 May 99 – UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has travelled to Macedonia to see the continuing flow of refugees from Kosovo, reports BBC News. His visit is to reassure the Macedonian government of the UN's continuing help in easing the refugee burden. Several hundred more crossed into Macedonia during Annan's visit yesterday. UN officials said the latest arrivals say another exodus of 20-30,000 refugees was on its way. Annan said the Macedonian prime minister had assured him the border would stay open. At Brazda refugee camp, Annan was cheered by hundreds of Kosovo Albanians. However his entourage was overwhelmed by the media, preventing him from speaking to the refugees. His press conference did not offer much hope for the refugees' early return. "Preferably (the refugees) will not spend the winter here," Annan said. "But I cannot give you that assurance." He said he believed the UN would have to play a central role in any peace accord. The Daily Telegraph reports many refugees reacted sceptically to Annan's insistence he was doing all he could to get them home. The Times reports Annan was confronted by banners emblazoned with the UNHCR logo and staff wearing blue-and-white T-shirts, making it hard to see the refugees. The Financial Times also reports. [Annan sees refugee crisis first-hand – http://news.bbc.co.uk; UN must have the last word, says Annan – www.telegraph.co.uk; UN chief sees camp in a sea of logos – www.the-times.co.uk; Annan urges role for UN – www.ft.com] 

MACEDONIA: AMNESTY ACCUSES AUTHORITIES 20 May 99 – Amnesty International yesterday accused Macedonia of breaking international refugee laws and said its police were intimidating Kosovan refugees, reports Reuters. Amnesty said refugees were not being given a choice of where they were sent or enough information about their rights once they got there. "When Macedonia closes the border, they are basically kicking people back to their deaths," said Saul Takahashi, Amnesty's refugee spokesman. Amnesty spokeswoman Leanne MacMillan said UNHCR's programme to transfer Kosovo refugees from camps in Macedonia to Albania was not working and should be dropped. Takahashi stressed that refugee camps should be run and protected by civilians, saying NATO soldiers should be pulled out. "Refugee protection has to be civilian, humanitarian and non-political and that is the reason for the UNHCR," he said. The Independent reports Amnesty believes Western governments were wrong to accept Macedonia's claim that the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees would destabilise the country. The result, it said, is that legal rights enshrined in the Geneva Conventions have been swept aside in the case of the displaced people of Kosovo. Amnesty also warned yesterday about the likelihood of serious tensions in the northern Albanian refugee camps if the UN pursues plans to transfer people further south or to move people from Macedonia to Albania. [Macedonia abusing Kosovo refugees-Amnesty – www.reuters.com; Amnesty condemns failure to grant refugees official status refugees – www.independent.co.uk] 

KOSOVANS: PLAN FOR WINTER NOW, SAYS OGATA 20 May 1999 – The international community must start planning now to help Kosovar refugees pass the next winter in camps by providing better housing and other facilities, UNHCR said yesterday, reports AFP. "The refugees cannot spend the winter in tents," Sadako Ogata said. She told Norway's NTB news agency in Bergen where she was attending a conference that solutions must be in place as soon as the first snow falls, which can be as early as October. "Of course, we hope for a quick solution to the refugee problem, but we must at the same time begin preparations to help them pass winter in the camps . . . We need winter tents and prefabricated housing, drinking water and decent sanitary facilities," she said. Liberation in Kukes reports a refugee representative as saying refugees find it hard to believe the conflict will not be settled as quickly as expected. Ogata is quoted as saying the international community "must begin preparations to help the refugees spend winter in the camps." Meanwhile a New York Times editorial says either hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians need to be safely resettled in Kosovo before freezing temperatures return to the Balkans or the United States and its allies must winterise refugee encampments in Albania and Macedonia and help Montenegro do the same. If refugee camps are to be made habitable for the winter, construction work must begin in June. [UNHCR calls for winter preparations – www.afp.com; Winter on horizon for refugees in Albania – www.liberation.fr; Before Winter Arrives in Kosovo – www.nytimes.com] 

KOSOVANS: OGATA URGES 'HARD-SOFT' COOPERATION 20 May 1999 – UN refugee chief Sadako Ogata yesterday criticised NATO bombings of Yugoslavia and urged closer cooperation between military and humanitarian efforts to end the Kosovo conflict, reports Reuters. "It is not for me to judge NATO military action in Yugoslavia...But I cannot avoid asking some questions," Ogata told a two-day human security conference in the west Norwegian port of Bergen. "Can bombs dropped from 15,000 feet resolve a house-to-house conflict between communities that have lived together, separate but intertwined, for hundreds of years?" She expressed an urgent need for coordination between what she called "soft measures," in terms of humanitarian aid, and "hard measures," such as NATO's military actions in Yugoslavia. "I hope I do not sound too pessimistic...if I say that in the last four years nothing that has happened in the world reassured us that soft measures alone can contain conflict, not to mention resolve or prevent it," she said. "The problem is – as the Yugoslav crisis shows – that 'hard measures,' such as international military intervention, appear equally inadequate, alone, to stop or prevent war." Ogata also urged greater cooperation in humanitarian peace-building efforts, saying: "I am very concerned over the gap which currently exists between humanitarian intervention during conflicts, and the beginning of long-term development programmes." [UN refugee chief slams NATO bombing of Yugoslavia – www.reuters.com] 

KOSOVANS: WEBSITE TO REUNITE FAMILIES 20 May 1999 – The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday it had launched an Internet website to help members of families split up by the Kosovo crisis find each other, reports Reuters. ICRC said this was the first time it had used the Internet in such a way. "The exodus of so many people in such a short time to countries where the Internet is available, and the fact that a lot of the refugees and displaced are familiar with modern technology, prompted us to take this step," said Olga Villarrubia, the ICRC official who manages the site. Users can log on to the site at www.familylinks.icrc.org and search for a loved one. [Red Cross uses Internet to reunite Kosovo families – www.reuters.com] 

KOSOVANS: GERMANY NEARS 15,000 TARGET 20 May 1999 – Germany, first choice destination for Kosovo Albanian refugees seeking evacuation from Macedonia, is nearing its 15,000 target, amid growing anxiety among those who fear being left out, reports AFP. "It was not like this six weeks ago, the pressure and tension have grown enormous," said Matthias Seeger, the German interior ministry official in charge of supervising the departures of refugees. "We have already evacuated 11,634 people from the various camps in Macedonia, so there are only some 3,400 places left," he said. AFP also reports Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy at a conference in Norway yesterday called on other countries to live up to their commitments to take in Kosovar refugees. He did not name any country specifically. AFP adds a British plane carrying 56 Kosovan refugees, including eight needing urgent medical treatment, touched down at an airport in central England late yesterday after a flight from Macedonia. [Panic surges as Germany approaches target of 15,000 Kosovo refugees + Axworthy says other countries must do more to help Kosovo refugees + 56 more Kosovan refugees arrive in Britain – www.afp.com] 

KOSOVO NOTES 20 May 1999 – Reuters reports the IOM said a 78-year-old Kosovo refugee died of a heart attack while on a flight from Macedonia to the United States yesterday. The Guardian reports a 12 year-old Kosovan boy hounded from his home after seeing his father killed has his pictures on display in Tetovo, Macedonia. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports a newly-formed independent local legislature in the Serbian city of Cacak has called for Kosovan Albanians to be protected and for their safe return to their homes. 

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