KOSOVO: REGISTRATION EXCLUDES MANY 31 May 99 – After being pursued for two months by paramilitaries and troops employed by the army and the Interior Ministry, the Yugoslav government's programme in Kosovo has now been turned over to its bureaucrats, reports the Washington Post. They are now creating a detailed accounting of who lives in Kosovo the first since 1981 and by so doing, trying to streamline and simplify the task of deciding who can stay and who must leave. The patterns of the new displacement are already evident: Only those who still have identification cards and other documents dating from before the war intensified on March 20 can obtain new residency cards. This leaves out hundreds of thousands of people whose identity papers were destroyed by police or left behind when they were forced to flee from their homes. None of these people will be able to return if the government's new policy sticks. Those who were expelled from their villages and fled into the mountains before migrating back to major cities in search of food are not entitled to stay in these cities, police have told them. And if they must move from the cities, the only path open to them is typically to head for Albania or Macedonia, according to refugees. Many say they fled rather than try to obtain the card, because they loathed the prospect of meeting with ethnic Serb officials. [Yugoslav Bureaucrats Creating Accounting – www.washingtonpost.com]

MACEDONIA: FEWER ARRIVE, AMID CONCERNS 31 May 99 – Aid agencies said on Saturday they were worried about the fate of ethnic Albanians trapped in Kosovo as the flood of refugees entering Macedonia ebbed to a trickle, reports Reuters. About 1,200 refugees arrived in Macedonia on Saturday, mostly on foot from villages in southern Kosovo, trudging through mountain snow to reach the border, UNHCR said. "We are very concerned because we know thousands, probably tens of thousands, want to come out," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said. "Their physical condition is deteriorating by the day, they are not getting any food, they are not getting any medical attention." About 260 new arrivals at the village of Odri in northwest Macedonia told UNHCR their villages had been emptied by Serb forces on Tuesday. Six hundred refugees also arrived through the woods at the northern village of Malina and about 300 at the Tabanovce border crossing with Serbia proper, Redmond added. The Independent adds NATO soldiers rescued three Kosovo Albanian refugees after they were badly injured in a minefield as they tried to flee from Kosovo into Macedonia. [Aid groups fear for refugees trapped in Kosovo – www.reuters.com; Soldiers aid men hurt in minefield – www.independent.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: CAMPS FACE SUMMER HEAT 31 May 99 – Refugees in Macedonia's overflowing camps struggled to keep cool yesterday as aid workers braced for a blazing Balkan summer and said it was time to start thinking about winter, reports Reuters. Temperatures were not unusual – rising towards 30 degrees centigrade – but they drove tens of thousands to seek shade wherever they could in the exposed camps. A lone tree in the Blace holding centre on the border with Kosovo turned into a huge leafy umbrella as refugees huddled under it. At Stankovic, the lower wing of an old biplane was used for the same purpose. Catholic Relief Services, which runs the Stankovic camp, said discussions had begun on how to ease the refugees' plight once summer really takes hold about four or five weeks from now. Petar Gjorievski, one of the agency's workers, said agencies would likely build large canopies to shelter people. Veteran British aid worker Larry Hollingsworth warned that winter would prove an even harsher test. [Refugees wilt in Macedonia heat, but worse to come – www.reuters.com]

MACEDONIA: GOV'T LASHES AT UNHCR 31 May 99 – Macedonia lashed out at UNHCR on Friday, implying it was tolerating drugs and prostitution in refugee camps, reports Reuters. Defence Minister Nikola Kljusev told a news conference UNHCR was more concerned with politics than helping the more than 106,000 refugees in the camps. He called on it to stop "bureaucracy and irresponsible behaviour" and to focus on the needs of the refugees. "Vice, prostitution, drug abuse, criminal behaviour, unrest, political pressures on deportees...are becoming more and more frequent (in the camps)," he said. UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said he knew nothing of drugs or prostitution in the refugee camps and that policing was an issue for Macedonia. The Washington Post reports Foreign Minister Aleksandar Dimitrov said, "Our budget is almost exhausted" from caring for an estimated 270,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees. But some Western diplomats have accused Macedonia of exaggerating both the number of refugees and the economic damage they have caused. UNHCR estimates the number of refugees as being closer to 220,000. [Macedonia says UNHCR fiddling as camp crime rises – www.reuters.com; Macedonia Willing to Accept More NATO Troops – www.washingtonpost.com]

MACEDONIA: NEW CAMP AGREED, SAYS UNHCR 31 May 99 – Authorities in Macedonia, where refugee camps are teeming with ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, have agreed to open a new camp, UNHCR said on Friday, reports Reuters. "In a positive development, the Skopje authorities have agreed to prepare a new refugee camp site in northwestern Macedonia, near the existing Cegrane site," UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva. The camp, expected to be ready in a week, will hold up to 20,000 people. [UNHCR says Macedonia has agreed to open new camp – www.reuters.com]

MACEDONIA: KOSOVANS REFUSE ALBANIA MOVE 31 May 99 – Aid agencies are struggling to convince Kosovo refugees to move from Macedonia's overcrowded camps to Albania but most are refusing to budge, reports Reuters. When a bus arrived yesterday at the Blace camp on the border with Kosovo to pick up 50 refugees who had registered for a lift to Albania, only 30 showed up. "We are actively encouraging those who wish to go to do so and do so quickly but it's a slow process," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said. But out of over 300,000 refugees who fled violence in Kosovo to Macedonia, only 600 have voluntarily moved on to Albania. [Macedonia's refugees reluctant to go to Albania – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: FREED MEN, OTHERS ARRIVE 31 May 99 – Another 250 Kosovan men released from prison crossed into Albania on Saturday as Serb forces skirmished with Kosovo guerrillas along the border with Albania, reports Reuters. The refugees were the latest group of men released from a Serb-controlled prison at Smrekonica. About 2,000 men have been freed from the prison in eight days. Saturday's arrivals told familiar stories of beatings. Meanwhile Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports UNHCR in Geneva on Saturday said Serb snipers wounded two female refugees seeking to enter Albania from Kosovo. UNHCR said that a total of 400 refugees had crossed the border at Morini on Friday. UNHCR added that the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serb army had engaged in heavy clashes near the border and that two villagers in Albania had been killed. AP reports UN officials on Friday said refugees from Kosovo continued to arrive in Albania despite a flare-up in border fighting making their traumatic trek even more hazardous. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said 400 ethnic Albanians arrived in northern Albania on Thursday amid sniper fire and artillery blasts. [More Kosovo men freed as fighting flares – www.reuters.com; Serb snipers wounded Kosovo refugees at border, UNHCR says – www.dpa.com; Refugees continue to arrive despite border fighting – www.ap.org]

ALBANIA: WAR EXERCISES WORRY UNHCR 31 May 99 – The Albanian army on Friday simulated a defence of its territory against a cross-border strike by Serbian forces, firing hundreds of artillery shells and rockets toward the embattled Kosovo frontier, reports AP. Western military sources said NATO had tried unsuccessfully to stop the exercise, fearing a Serbian military response in an area packed with more than 100,000 Kosovo refugees and international aid personnel. UNHCR, which processes refugees at Morini, pulled out during the exercise and warned journalists to exercise caution. Reuters reports UNHCR expressed fears on Friday that Albanian army training exercises could draw artillery fire from the Serb side in an area packed with 100,000 refugees. Spokesman Kris Janowski said the exercise followed heavy fighting on Thursday in the Kukes border area between Kosovo Liberation Army rebels and Serb forces. The military activity highlighted the need to continue evacuating ethnic Albanian refugees in the area and taking them further south, he said. [Albanian army stages war games near embattled border – www.ap.org; Albanian military exercises worry UN refugee body – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: 'VULNERABLE' AIRLIFTED INLAND 31 May 99 – A newly born baby and an 87-year-old man with gangrene were among Kosovo refugees bundled into helicopters as an international effort to empty camps near the embattled northern Albanian frontier gathered momentum Saturday, reports AP. In the first such airlift, 29 refugees described as "vulnerable" were flown aboard two Chinook helicopters to camps in central and southern Albania. Recent frontier fighting between Serbian forces and the increasingly aggressive guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army has heightened the sense of urgency among aid officials to relocate more than 30,000 refugees from camps around Kukes. "The idea is to convince them to move, and so far we have been successful," said Kaspriot Islami, the Albanian government's coordinator for humanitarian affairs. "I don't think they will refuse. They are intelligent enough." Still, many refugees prefer to remain close to their homeland. The KLA finds the frontier camps fruitful grounds for recruiting young men to fight for Kosovo's independence. [Babies, aged and sick refugees helicoptered to safer camps in Albania – www.ap.org]

ALBANIA: KOSOVAN CROWNED MISS ALBANIA 31 May 99 – A teenage Kosovo refugee has beaten 23 rivals to be crowned Miss Albania 99, reports BBC News. It was the first time an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo had entered the contest. Venera Mustafa, one of three-quarters of a million refugees to have fled Kosovo, will now represent Albania in the Miss Europe contest. Venera said: "This shows that we [in Kosovo and Albania] are one ... all together." "I entered this competition because there are almost half a million Kosovars here and I wanted to represent my people." The 19-year-old student from Pristina, who collected a US$6,000 winner's cheque, escaped from Kosovo with her sister and mother. [Refugee crowned Miss Albania – http://news.bbc.co.uk]

ALBANIA: $45m LOAN? 31 May 99 – The World Bank is expected to approve this week a US$45m loan to Albania as part of a US$200m international financial package to shore up the state budget, under severe pressure from hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighbouring Kosovo, reports the Financial Times. The arrival of nearly 450,000 refugees, expelled from Kosovo as part of Belgrade's ethnic cleansing campaign has increased the population of Europe's poorest country by 15%. Around 80,000 of the Kosovar refugees are living in camps in Albania, close to 100,000 are in collective centres such as sport stadiums, schools and disused factories, but most are being privately sheltered by Albanian families. The government estimates that the crisis in Kosovo has added around US$160m to the budget deficit and has increased its foreign borrowing needs from the original US$40m forecast for 1999 to around US$200m. Leading donors have accepted that additional external financing could be needed later this year and have agreed, if necessary, to organise another donor conference for Albania. [Albania set to receive $45m loan – www.ft.com]

KOSOVANS: BELGRADE ACCEPTS PRINCIPLES 31 May 99 – Yugoslavia has accepted the Group of Eight principles for a peace deal in Kosovo, said a statement published Friday after talks between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, reports AFP. The G8 principles provide for a halt of the oppression in Kosovo the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and the deployment of an international security "presence." It also calls for the return of ethnic Albanian refugees, the setting up of an interim administration and the opening of Serb-Kosovar talks on the province's future. AFP reports the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, Saturday gave a cautious welcome to Belgrade's move to accept the Group of Eight principles for a peace deal in Kosovo. Ogata, quoted by the Swiss agency ATS, said Yugoslavia's announcement was "good news" but stressed she would wait to see if it was followed by concrete action. [Belgrade accepts G8 principles for Kosovo deal + UNHCR gives cautious welcome to Belgrade's Kosovo peace move – www.afp.com]

KOSOVANS: RAPED WOMEN FACE SHAME 31 May 99 – For the untold numbers of Kosovo Albanian women and girls raped by Serbian soldiers in Kosovo, the heartless judgement expected from their communities may prove the more enduring injury from this most humiliating of war crimes, reports the Los Angeles Times. Rape's power to destroy women's self-worth is intensified by the patriarchal views of Kosovo villagers who see it as a shame on the victim's entire family. Ethnic Albanians from poor, rural areas, see death as the only honourable future for those raped by the enemies. Medica Kosovo aims to locate and assist raped women, because its counsellors fear that the victims will never recover or return to their villages if they continue to repress and distort what they've been through. Mobile rape relief teams have been assembled to visit refugee camps where sexually assaulted women are living in self-imposed isolation and denial. Gynaecologists, psychologists and lawyers will be travelling from camp to camp in a specially equipped ambulance donated by the organisation's German sponsors to convince victims that they should undergo both physical and psychological examinations. They are also being asked to provide legal testimony to assist the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. [In Kosovo, Rape Seen As Awful As Death – www.latimes.com]

ITALY: HUNDREDS SMUGGLED, RESCUED 31 May 99 – About a thousand refugees from Kosovo have arrived on the Italian coast in the past 24 hours, ferried there by smugglers, reports BBC News. Some 470 Kosovo refugees were rescued on Saturday night after the men they paid to ferry them across the Adriatic abandonned ship. Officials from the Italian port of Bari spotted the ship about 20km offshore, and ferried the refugees to safety. They have been granted temporary asylum and taken to reception centres. The boat had left Ulcinj in Montenegro late on Friday night. Another 175 refugees were ferried ashore on yesterday morning, after an Italian naval patrol boat sighted overcrowded fishing boat off Otranto. Italy is setting up special offices are two Albanian ports to process asylum applications and enable Kosovars to travel to Italy by regular ferry services, instead of paying huge sums to smugglers. AFP reports the Italian coast guard said some 645 people, mainly ethnic Albanian refugees, were rescued at sea yesterday in two separate rescue operations off Italy's southeastern coast. Reuters reports coastguards said around 130 refugees and illegal immigrants including a pregnant woman and two blind children were picked up aboard a fishing ship heading for the Italian coast yesterday. [Refugee wave hits Italy – http://news.bbc.co.uk; 645 Kosovar refugees rescued at sea – www.afp.com; 130 refugees, immigrants picked up off Italy coast – www.reuters.com]

CANADA: INTEGRATION BEGINS 31 May 99 – With no end in sight to the Kosovo crisis, Canada has decided to begin integrating the first of 5,000 "temporary" refugees from Kosovo into local communities, reports AFP. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration said three families would be flown out from Camp Aldershot, Nova Scotia, Saturday afternoon to be settled in Cochrane – a small community about 20 km west of Calgary, Alberta. Originally, Canada agreed to take the refugees for temporary re-settlement at military bases until they could return home. Ottawa has decided to give refugees the option of staying on military bases or integrating into local communities. Immigration and Citizenship Minister Lucienne Bouchard appealed to local charitable groups and churches to agree to help the refugees settle in, saying refugees would have the option to stay in Canada indefinitely if they wished, and would qualify eventually for Canadian citizenship. [First three Kosovar families leave Canadian military base – www.afp.com]

USA: PROCESSING MOVED TO MACEDONIA 31 May 99 – The US government is apparently streamlining its resettlement procedures for Kosovo refugees by switching processing from Fort Dix, New Jersey, to camps in Macedonia, officials said on Friday, reports Reuters. More than 3,500 ethnic Albanian refugees have passed through Fort Dix as part of the US agreement to accept 20,000 refugees, but a US Army official at Fort Dix said the last scheduled flight will land on Saturday. The expected changes were described by a the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) refugee agency as a sign that the massive Kosovo resettlement effort by Western nations may have begun to alleviate the overcrowding at refugee camps in the Balkans. Previously IOM officials in the Balkans were putting refugees through an expedited process that left full medical, security and immigration checks to US officials at Fort Dix. Officials said the changes will mean all processing and background checks will be conducted in Macedonia. [US changes Kosovo refugee processing – www.reuters.com]

BRITAIN: AIRLIFT INTAKE TO INCREASE 31 May 99 – The airlifting of Kosovans to Britain will be stepped up this week after renewed complaints from the Macedonian government that Western powers are not doing enough to ease the refugee crisis, reports the Observer. Britain has accepted fewer than 2,000 Kosovan evacuees, despite a promise from Home Secretary Jack Straw to take 'up to 1,000 a week.' From today, British officials anticipate there will be one flight a day, bringing in up to 200 evacuees at a time. Labour MP Ann Clwyd has complained to Tony Blair and Robin Cook about the delays. The Home Office has also granted political asylum to hundreds of Kosovo Albanians who fled to Britain before the start of the bombing in March. New figures show that during April, 630 refugees from former Yugoslavia were given recognition – almost treble the previous monthly figure. Nearly all the successful applicants are believed to be Albanians from Kosovo, including 140 who have waited more than four years. Aid workers have accused the government of operating a system which divides 'good' refugees from the Balkans conflict from 'bad' refugees who arrive from anywhere else, some of whom have fled from equally horrific wars. [Britain 'to step up' refugee intake – www.newsunlimited.co.uk]

SERBIA: AID WORKER 'SPIES' JAILED 31 May 99 – Australia has condemned as "incomprehensible" Yugoslavia's jailing of two Australian aid workers on spying charges, while their aid agency CARE said the trial set a dangerous precedent for all humanitarian workers, reports Reuters. Steve Pratt was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Peter Wallace received four years, and a Yugoslav colleague, Branko Jelen, was given six years. Pratt and Wallace were arrested on Yugoslavia's border with Croatia on March 31. CARE maintains they were delivering food and medical supplies to Serb refugees displaced during the 1992-1995 Bosnia war. CARE Australia Chairman Malcolm Fraser said Yugoslav border guards had misinterpreted situation reports the workers were carrying, adding there were now serious implications for all aid workers there. [Australia decries Belgrade aid worker jailings – www.reuters.com]

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