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

ALBANIA: FERRIED OUT? 1 Jun. 99 – Nobody cared that at least 2,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo crowding aboard the ferries at the Albanian port of Vlore last week were carrying false Italian residence permits for which they had paid as much as US$1,110 each, reports Reuters. Once in Italy, the permits would only land them in a refugee camp but that was exactly what they wanted: to be away from Albania and closer to relatives in Germany or Switzerland. And travelling this way, they would avoid the perils of a speedboat journey to beaches in southern Italy offered by Vlore's powerful criminal gangs. The speedboats are the more traditional but much riskier option. But things suddenly changed at the weekend as the authorities got tougher under pressure from Italy and other western governments. On Sunday, two ferries had to leave with just a few passengers after police pushed back some 800 ethnic Albanians, after an order from the interior ministry in Tirana that they should not be allowed to embark. The Guardian reports Vlore's smugglers have been handed a new source of raw materials for their human trade: UNHCR is starting to move tens of thousands of Kosovans down from the border to within tantalising reach of this hazardous escape route. [Smugglers find new way to fleece Kosovo refugees – www.reuters.com; Smugglers latch on to Kosovans – www.newsunlimited.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: MORE DESPERATE TO GO ABROAD 1 Jun. 99 – Kosovans are giving up on their dream of returning home soon and are increasingly desperate to go abroad, reports the New York Times. If there is an overwhelming sense that emerges from a walk through the squalid refugee camps of Macedonia these days, it is despair. Both newly arrived refugees who until last week bravely eluded Yugoslav efforts to expel them from Kosovo or the refugees who have already endured weeks in overcrowded camps want to go abroad now. In recent days, ethnic Albanians arriving from Pristina described how they spent the last two months determined to wait out the conflict and not bow to Yugoslav pressure. After being expelled from their own homes in early April, they simply moved from house to house, village to village, for weeks, they said, playing a nerve-fraying cat-and-mouse game with their pursuers. But as April dragged into May and now June, their desperation grew and their determination waned, refugees said. A librarian who fled Pristina with his family last Monday now hopes to go abroad. At the same time, among the roughly 100,000 refugees who have been waiting in camps in Macedonia, initial optimism that the conflict would be over swiftly has faded, along with the desire to avoid resettling farther from home. The largest single source of tension in the camps are the bitter disputes over who gets to be evacuated abroad first, aid workers said. [Despairing of Getting Home, Kosovars Yearn to Go Abroad – www.nytimes.com]

ITALY: THOUSANDS ARRIVE, 'BURSTING' CENTRES 1 Jun. 99 – Calm seas carried hundreds of new would-be refugees across the Adriatic to Italy yesterday, the latest in a growing influx that has seen more than 10,000 new arrivals in May alone, reports AP. Italian forces patrolling the southern coast of Puglia intercepted more than 400 by midday. Most said they came from Kosovo and many sought political asylum. Smugglers taking advantage of days of flat seas have brought more than 5,500 illegal immigrants over in seven days. Meanwhile Ansa news agency reports refugee reception centres in Puglia were reported to be strained "to bursting point" yesterday. Authorities at the reception centre at Bari's Palese airport said they had 1,758 refugees camped in caravans and trailers. The theoretical capacity of the camp was 2,000 but some of the unused trailers were in such bad condition that "one more refugee" would create problems. At Lecce, further down the coast, three centres held about 1,700 people. Facilities and staff appeared to be coping fairly well so far. But at Brindisi, the main arrivals point, the authorities were quoted as saying the situation was becoming "dramatic." [Days of calm seas bring thousands of refugees across Adriatic – www.ap.org; Situation in Italian refugee camps said critical – www.ansa.it]

SWITZERLAND: KOSOVANS TO BE DISSUADED 1 Jun. 99 – The Swiss government decided yesterday to make Switzerland a less attractive destination for thousands of Kosovo refugees eager to join some 100,000 Kosovo asylum-seekers already in the country, reports Reuters in Berne. Neutral Switzerland will continue to honour humanitarian obligations, but it will also draw up steps to stem the rising tide of refugees and press its neighbours to share more of the burden, the cabinet said. Justice Minister Ruth Metzler said details still had to be worked out, but suggested excess refugees could be forced to stay in special holding camps until they could be processed as refugees, SDA news agency reported. Authorities were also considering sending new arrivals directly to private people willing to take them in rather than channelling them through reception camps. "The Federal Council (government) continues to adhere to Switzerland's humanitarian tradition and to taking in refugees who are endangered, life and limb, or face inhumane hardship," the cabinet said. "But it decided...to lower Switzerland's attractiveness by drawing up emergency legal steps given the scope of the Kosovo refugee drama and shortcomings in international cooperation." AP reports Switzerland's government decided to call in the army to guard refugee centres and help care for refugees. [Swiss pull emergency brake on Kosovo refugees – www.reuters.com; Swiss recall army to help deal with Kosovo refugees – www.ap.org]

KOSOVANS: OBSTACLES TO RETURNS 1 Jun. 99 – Prospects for the repatriation of 800,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees are being complicated by enormous obstacles of timing, logistics and politics, reports the Washington Post in Macedonia. A sense of urgency is spreading among the refugees and citizens of Macedonia and Albania. Families are trying to calculate when and how the conflict will end to decide whether to take refuge in a third country. Humanitarian groups and governments are studying whether to transform precarious tent cities into more durable accommodations. Relief agencies have just begun planning the huge task of rebuilding camps so refugees can survive a brutal winter. NATO allies have made the return of all the refugees the central goal and measure of success of the military campaign against Yugoslavia. The timing and extent of the repatriation have various serious consequences. Even if a diplomatic solution is reached soon, many refugees will closely examine the terms before deciding when and how to return. Refugees also said that if Serbian security forces remain in the province or are visible at border crossings, they were unlikely to return. They uniformly rejected Russian troops as adequate to guarantee refugees' security. Exiled Kosovo Albanians fear President Slobodan Milosevic would manipulate population data, property and immigration laws, and other means to limit the return flow. Tens of thousands of exiles, mostly in Albania, lack proof of their identity. "It's a big, big problem," said UNHCR's Benny Otim. [For Refugees, No Easy Road Home – www.washingtonpost.com]

KOSOVANS: RETURNS -YES, BUT NOT UNDER SERBS 1 Jun. 99 – As badly as Kosovan refugees want to return to their homes in Kosovo, most do not want to go back if it remains part of Yugoslavia – even if it is guaranteed political autonomy and foreign peacekeepers, reports the Christian Science Monitor. That was one strong message in a Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll of Albanian Kosovans now at Fort Dix, N.J., awaiting resettlement elsewhere in the United States. While this survey is only suggestive of the views of roughly one million Kosovo refugees, it is the most comprehensive survey of the refugees yet published. The yearning to go home was a powerful theme among those interviewed. More than 8 out of 10 wanted to return to their homeland. But more than three-quarters of the 459 refugees polled say they do not want to go back to a Serbian-controlled country, even if a peace settlement included international peacekeepers to maintain their safety – which is the outcome NATO officially supports. The Christian Science Monitor also reports the Kosovan refugees are adamant about the necessity of NATO's bombing campaign, according to the poll. Almost all – 98% of those polled – say they support the campaign. They say NATO is their best hope to return home. Almost as high a percentage of those polled – 97% – favour a land invasion of Kosovo. Of the refugees polled, 9 out of 10 supported the KLA. [Refugees want only a free Kosovo + Refugees say their future hangs on NATO ground force – www.csmonitor.com]

KOSOVANS: HELP HOST FAMILIES 1 Jun. 99 – Fewer than half the ethnic Albanians who have poured out of Kosovo since March have entered emergency refugee camps abroad, said The Times in an editorial yesterday. About 430,000 have instead found refuge with local families in ordinary homes. But most emergency aid is going to feed and lodge the refugees in camps. No money at all is paid to the generous individuals in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro who, despite their poverty, are also offering food and lodging to unexpected guests. So far, the only help host families can expect is one food parcel per refugee per month, distributed fitfully by local agencies. There are many reasons why cash-for-shelter schemes have been slow in coming. Most are administrative: registering refugees takes time and setting up corruption-proof distribution networks takes cunning. UNHCR attributes the absence of cash payments in Macedonia to local politics. The agency is now drafting a plan to pay host families in Albania US$9.6 a month for each refugee, up to a maximum of 12. Officials say the US$2.7m a month handout, which will be backdated to April 1 and accompanied by similar schemes organised by individual nations, can only start once refugees are registered and ways are found to make and monitor payments. But bureaucratic delays should be kept to a minimum. It is a matter both of practical urgency and of honour to alleviate the hardships of the Kosovo refugees' hosts. [More must be done for those helping Kosovan refugees – www.the-times.co.uk]

KOSOVANS: MEN TELL OF PRISON ABUSES 1 Jun. 99 – Men freed from two prisons in Kosovo who've recently crossed into Albania and Macedonia are describing a pattern of savage beatings and other abuses suffered at the hands of their Serb captors, UNHCR said yesterday, reports AP in Geneva. Some 157 former prisoners held at the Smrekovnica prison arrived in Albania Sunday, following hundreds of others over the preceding days, said UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski. Fifty-one once held at another jail in Lipljan arrived in Macedonia. Virtually all are heavily traumatised and bearing evidence of daily beatings, he said. "The pattern is exactly the same with daily beatings with clubs, police batons, people being traumatised by hearing screams and shouts all day, every day, being given very little food," Janowski said. [UN: pattern of beatings and abuse emerges from freed prisoners – www.ap.org]

KOSOVANS: ROBINSON REPORTS CRIMES 1 Jun. 99 – The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, has accused the Yugoslav army and police of committing gross crimes against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo in a report following her trip to the Balkans last month, reports BBC News. Robinson said she had collected truly compelling testimonies of executions, rapes and other atrocities. She said much of the evidence came from interviews with refugees conducted by UN monitors in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro. Reuters adds Robinson yesterday accused the Yugoslav army and police of committing gross violations in Kosovo, including executions and rapes, in its forced mass expulsions of ethnic Albanians. In a major report, she called on Belgrade's forces to halt atrocities and withdraw immediately from the blood-soaked province. But Robinson also criticised NATO's use of cluster bombs in its air campaign against Yugoslavia and destruction of schools and hospitals. The Independent also reports. [Robinson report on Kosovo crimes – http://news.bbc.co.uk; U.N.'s Robinson slams Serb abuses in Kosovo – www.reuters.com; Robinson backs war indictment – www.independent.co.uk]

SERBIA: MISSILES KILL CROATIANS, BOSNIANS 1 Jun. 99 – Rescuers loaded corpses onto a truck and combed the wreckage for more at a Serbian sanatorium hit in a NATO missile strike yesterday, reports Reuters. At least 17 people died when three missiles blasted into the Surdulica sanatorium, housing Serb elderly and refugees from the 1991-95 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, according to eyewitnesses. "This was not a mistake. It wasn't collateral damage either, it is an outright crime," said Branislav Ristic, head of civil defence in Surdulica. A NATO spokesman said the alliance had targeted military barracks in Surdulica. Hospital manager Srboljub Aleksic said the hospital had treated civilians only. AP reports that among the dead was a refugee mother, Bosiljka Malobabic, 45, and her three children, Rade, 18, Milena, 17 and Milan 16. The New York Times adds the sanatorium housed a number of healthy Serbian refugees who were expelled from Croatia in an earlier period of ethnic purging that, as Yugoslav officials often point out, brought Croatia little criticism and no bombing from NATO. Journalists who went there yesterday said some refugees, believing the hospital complex was a NATO target, began living outside in tents on the grass. The Guardian and Liberation also report. [Rescuers comb Serb sanatorium rubble for bodies – www.reuters.com; Town feels `doomed' after second NATO attacks kills civilians – www.ap.org; Dozens of Civilians Are Killed as NATO Air Strikes Go Awry – www.nytimes.com; Nato bombs kill 17 in sanatorium – www.newsunlimited.co.uk; Polemic against NATO strike – www.liberation.fr]

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