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

KOSOVANS: MORE FOOD NEEDED 8 Apr. 99 – The World Food Programme said yesterday it had appealed to donor nations for a further US$24.1m "to save lives of Kosovar refugees" in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, bringing to US$46.3m the total cost of its aid operations in the region, reports Reuters. Reuters adds NATO officials at Stenkovec camp in Macedonia said they feared food for 20,000 ethnic Albanians would run out in less than 24 hours. Reuters also reports the US Agriculture Secretary yesterday said the United States is considering donating commodities to some Balkan countries to bolster relief efforts for Kosovo refugees. AFP reports the Canadian government yesterday said it would send US$3.3m in food aid to Kosovo refugees. [UN food agency appeals for ``lifesaving'' $24 mln + U.S. mulls commodity donations for Kosovo refugees + NATO officials fear Kosovo refugee food shortage. – www.reuters.com; Canada to send 3.3 million dollars in food aid for Kosovo refugees – www.afp.com]

KOSOVANS: UNHCR COORDINATES, NOT NATO 8 Apr. 99 – Russia asked the UN secretariat yesterday to make it clear to the media that UNHCR, not NATO, was in charge of coordinating aid for Kosovo refugees, reports Reuters. The UN then circulated the text of a recent exchange of letters in which NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana offered assistance to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, and she accepted it. Russian ambassador Sergei Lavrov said a newspaper report makes it look as if UNHCR was asking NATO for help, not that NATO offered its assets to UNHCR. "Second, it said that UNHCR asked for military help, which is not the case," he added. It was also "entirely wrong" to say, "from now on NATO takes over from the UNHCR as coordinator of the humanitarian assistance," said Lavrov. "Actually, it is the other way round," he said. "The UN made it clear that they accept this offer of assistance on the understanding that UNHCR is in the lead," Lavrov added. AFP reports Lavrov's criticism related to a New York Times article yesterday. [Russia stresses U.N., not NATO, in lead on refugees – www.reuters.com; Letters on Kosovo refugees published after Russia protest – www.afp.com]

MACEDONIA: KOSOVANS STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR 8 Apr. 99 – Macedonia said yesterday half of the refugees cleared from an area along the border with Serbia were still in the country after being moved, reports Reuters. "Maybe half of them are deployed in different places inside Macedonia...and around 7-8,000 persons, as I'm informed, were transported by buses to Albania because the Albanian government announced that they are willing to accept these refugees," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. Reuters also reports UNHCR spokeswoman Judith Kumin today said the agency believes 28,000 people had been taken to transit camps in Macedonia and another 10,000 had gone to southeastern Albania. The agency could not say for sure how much of the group this represented. The New York Times reports it was clear they had left in a hurry. Abandoned belongings and plastic bags littered the ground. The night-time operation was chaotic. Over 10,000 refugees remained unaccounted for 24 hours later, a UNHCR spokeswoman said. The Washington Post reports so many mysteries: So many things that can't be explained, not officially, not unofficially. Chief among them, does anyone know where all the refugees went? How many were moved overnight? How did they leave? The Financial Times reports the Macedonian government cleared tens of thousands of refugees from Blace early yesterday, forcing some of them to Albania. [Macedonia disputes mystery over fate of refugees + UNHCR finds 40,000 amid refugee confusion – www.reuters.com; As a Border Camp Is Broken Up, Refugees Are Scattered and Families Separated – www.nytimes.com; In Macedonia, A Troubling Disappearance – www.washingtonpost.com; Skopje clears border crush – www.ft.com]

MACEDONIA: KOSOVANS MOVED, UNWILLINGLY 8 Apr. 99 – UNHCR accused Macedonia yesterday of moving Kosovar refugees out of the country against their will, reports Reuters. "Several flights left for Turkey while convoys of buses reportedly moved people to the Albanian and Greek borders," said UNHCR in a statement. The International Herald Tribune reports an entire encampment of the dispossessed at Blace – about 45,000 people – was hastily jammed on to buses and driven to makeshift military camps and transit centres where conditions were better but still primitive. Aid officials again accused the Macedonian government of carelessly and sometimes brutally dividing families and failing to tell the evacuees where they were bound for. But it was clear that the tent cities erected by NATO military forces in Macedonia and Albania were functioning, with food and medical supplies pouring in on aid flights. The airlift of refugees to other parts of Europe continued slowly. Germany's first complement of refugees landed in Nuremburg aboard a German air force plane. Reuters adds that the United States warned Macedonia yesterday that it must adhere to international standards in dealing with the refugees. [UNHCR says Macedonia forced refugees out + U.S. warns Macedonia on refugees – www.reuters.com; Hasty Evacuation Of Dispossessed From Macedonia Raises Tensions – www.iht.com; Refugees breed fear in fragile Macedonia – www.guardian.co.uk]

ALBANIA: KOSOVANS DISAPPEAR FROM BORDER 8 Apr. 99 – Tens of thousands of refugees from Kosovo waiting to cross the border at Morini vanished in the middle of the night, ordered out of a column stretching miles back by Serbian forces and sent walking to an unknown fate, reports the New York Times. The shabby little border crossing, swamped for more than a week with ethnic Albanians refugees, was eerily empty yesterday. At 3:30am, Serbian forces walked up to the midpoint of the no-man's land between the two customs posts, according to OSCE observers. Those on the Albanian side could keep on going; those still in the Serbian zone were ordered to turn around. No one here knows what happened to them. "We have no idea," said UNHCR spokesman Jacques Franquin. "We are very worried. There is reason to be worried." When the column was turned back on Tuesday night, the refugees were backed up to the city of Prizren, he said. Stunned aid officials could only speculate on the latest twist in the tactics of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic. "Whatever is happening, you can rest assured it is not to the benefit of these refugees," said Eugene O'Sullivan, the chief of the OSCE observer team based in nearby Kukes. [Refugee Flow Into Albania Halts Abruptly – www.nytimes.com]

ALBANIA: KOSOVANS SENT FROM MACEDONIA 8 Apr. 99 – Around 10,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees arrived in southeastern Albania yesterday, saying they had been bussed there against their will by Macedonian police from Blace on Macedonia's borders, reports Reuters. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said around half of them were immediately taken in by local people in the town of Korce and the remainder were in a sports stadium in the town. The Albanian news agency ATA quoted refugees as saying they had been forced to board buses and maltreated by Macedonian police. International aid agencies have virtually no presence in Korce. [Exhausted Blace refugees arrive in Albania – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: EXTRA KOSOVANS, FUNDING 8 Apr. 99 – EU governments agreed yesterday to provide Albania with funding to receive up to 100,000 extra refugees from Kosovo in a bid to ensure most of the conflict's victims are kept in the region, reports AFP. The Financial Times reports international aid agencies praise the welcome Albania has given to the 300,000 refugees. Yet there are fears that calm cannot last in a land of chronic economic and political instability. Knut Vollebaek, chairman of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, warned on a visit to Tirana this week that in both Albania and Macedonia the economic situation was "difficult" and the political position "rather fragile." The government of Pandeli Majko pins its hopes on the foreign aid that has been promised by the World Bank and other donors. He says Albania must help the ethnic Albanian refugees, including those rejected by Macedonia, even though it cannot afford the costs. Sali Berisha, the volatile opposition leader, has pledged to avoid taking advantage of the refugee crisis. The New York Times in Durres reports the official camps and even the unofficial ones look like horrific limbo zones for refugees too numb to be anxious about the future. [EU to pay Albania to take in refugees – www.afp.com; Albania fears influx could shatter calm – www.ft.com; An Overcrowded Tent City 'Is Beautiful' to Many Just Arrived From Kosovo – www.nytimes.com]

TURKEY: KOSOVANS FRET FOR FAMILIES 8 Apr. 99 – Idyllic weather, hot food and free soccer balls could not ease the distress of nearly 3,000 Kosovo refugees sheltering yesterday in a leafy camp in western Turkey, reports Reuters. The refugees began arriving on Monday, exhausted after a traumatic journey through crowds and squalor in Macedonia. Nearly all said they had been separated from their families by Macedonian police. The New York Times reports for many of the 2,768 refugees the relief of being out of the teeming refugee centres on the Kosovo border has been spiked with bitterness and worry at being separated from families. The Financial Times reports historical ties to Muslims in the now independent Balkan states give Turkish empathy for victims of Serbian "ethnic cleansing" a special edge. Turkish fighter aircraft are taking part in the air strikes, while the Turkish equivalent of the Red Cross is readying accommodation for 20,000 refugees. The Guardian reports the barbed-wire enclosure of the Gaziosmanpasa camp will be the largest Kosovan refugee camp away from Kosovo's borders. [Kosovans fret for families in leafy Turkish camp – www.reuters.com; Families Torn Apart on the Way to Safety – www.nytimes.com; Turkey aims to aid Moslem brethren – www.ft.com; Warm welcome but it's not home – www.guardian.co.uk]

EUROPE: KOSOVAN EVACUATION REJECTED NOW 8 Apr. 99 – European Union interior ministers have rejected proposals for a mass evacuation of Kosovo Albanians to Western Europe, reports BBC News. Instead they agreed to give priority to helping refugees from Kosovo in neighbouring countries. The ministers, meeting in Luxembourg after days of confusion over policy on the issue, said that to fly the refugees to other countries would send the wrong signal to the Yugoslav government, which they blame for the exodus. The Daily Telegraph reports plans for a mass airlift of tens of thousands of Kosovan refugees were dropped last night after EU nations resisted German-led pressure to set fixed quotas of the numbers of displaced persons that each country should receive. Reuters reports EU governments decided to give priority to helping refugees from Kosovo in neighbouring countries but said they would be prepared to host some refugees if necessary. Several EU member states, including Britain and France, declined to say exactly how many Kosovo refugees they would be prepared to take. Germany has offered to take 10,000 Kosovo refugees, Austria and Sweden 5,000 each and Ireland 1,000, EU officials said. Germany had previously said it would take 40,000 under a plan to give temporary sanctuary to up to 100,000 refugees. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports Amnesty International yesterday said the international community's current offers to take in Kosovan refugees were not adequate. [Refugee airlift ruled out – http://news.bbc.co.uk; EU drops plans for mass airlift of Kosovo refugees Aid – www.telegraph.co.uk; EU stresses need to help Kosovo refugees on spot – www.reuters.com; Help offers for refugees inadequate: Amnesty International – www.dpa.com]

EUROPE: TIDE OF GENEROSITY FOR KOSOVANS 8 Apr. 99 – The governments of Europe may have mixed feelings about taking in Kosovo refugees, but the people are racing ahead, reports the Washington Post. The food drive in France has brought in 280,000 tons of donations, most of it in the last two days. In Kalmar, Sweden, people donated used computers to be sold at a fund-raising flea market. In Britain, more than US$5m was raised in less than 24 hours, with calls flooding 3,400 telephone lines. Every day, two planeloads of food, tents and water purification systems leave Cologne, Germany, for Tirana, Albania, and Skopje, Macedonia, the two countries where most of the refugees have gone. The Spanish Red Cross has sent four truckloads and one planeload of food and medical supplies to Albania, enough to help an estimated 50,000 refugees. In Italy, so many donations have poured in that the Red Cross there has asked that contributions of food, clothing and bedding be suspended because there is no more room to store them. There are two reasons for this outpouring. First, for the rich nations of Western Europe, Kosovo is virtually a neighbour. And second, Kosovo is personal: Many people see in this crisis echoes of Europe's two devastating wars this century. Those factors also have led many people to support NATO's continuing military campaign against Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's forces. [From European Public, a Tide of Generosity – www.washingtonpost.com]

KOSOVANS: THE 'ONLY' SOLUTION 8 Apr. 99 – Evacuation to Guam, Guantanamo, Germany or Turkey provides no solution to the Kosovo refugee problem. It represents denial of the fundamental problem, which is the war, which is being lost, says William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune. Resettlement abroad means collaboration in Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. The only acceptable resolution for the refugees is to be escorted back to their homes (those homes that survive) and provided with the security in which they can rebuild their lives. The only solution, then, is a NATO military victory. The Guardian says the Milosevic regime has lost contact with reality if its leaders assume the international consequences of driving hundreds of thousands of people to their borders can be reversed simply by driving them back again. [Land Intervention Is the Only Hope for Kosovo – www.iht.com]

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