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

KOSOVANS: OVER HALF HAVE RETURNED 29 Jun. 99 – More than half of the almost 800,000 Kosovars who fled to neighbouring countries to escape Belgrade's campaign of ethnic cleansing have returned to Kosovo in under two weeks, reports the Financial Times. UNHCR said the movement marked "one of the fastest spontaneous refugee returns seen by UNHCR in decades." UNHCR has been powerless to slow the tide of returning ethnic Albanian Kosovars despite its concerns that many refugees still face an uncertain security situation, heavy damage to their homes and lack of an international support system, as relief agencies struggle to keep pace. UNHCR said dozens of refugees had been wounded or killed by mines and unexploded ordnance and many had returned to find their towns and villages destroyed. BBC News accompanies two Kosovan sisters returning from Kukes in Albania to Mitrovica. [Half of all refugees have returned – www.ft.com; A Mitrovica homecoming – http://news.bbc.co.uk]

KOSOVANS: UNNECESSARY AID 'DUMPED' 29 Jun. 99 – Last month, Project Hope, the American medical charity, shipped US$1.5m worth of emergency supplies to the Kosovo refugees. But relief workers desperate for syringes, penicillin and insulin found many of the hundreds of boxes instead contained Chap Stick, Preparation H and anti-smoking inhalers – given by US companies that got a tax break for the donations, reports the New York Times. The outpouring of aid from corporate America and elsewhere for the roughly 700,000 refugees that flooded Albania and Macedonia during the war between NATO and Yugoslavia was indeed massive and included many badly needed medicines. But WHO said about a third to half of all of the shipments were essentially useless and are likely to just gather dust in warehouses or be destroyed at government expense. The problem arises, critics say, as there remain far too many incentives for companies to empty out their warehouses, regardless of need, and for charities to ferry the supplies along. What particularly upsets the critics is the belief, especially prevalent among American donors, that any gift is better than none. The problem is expected to worsen as the refugees stream back into Kosovo. With no central authority in place to provide oversight, relief workers say that they fear more widespread dumping. [Among U.S. Donations, Tons of Worthless Drugs – www.nytimes.com]

GERMANY: KOSOVANS MUST LEAVE – MINISTERS 29 Jun. 99 – Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily declared yesterday that some 180,000 Kosovo Albanians illegally in Germany must leave the country, reports AP. Schily, after a meeting of state interior ministers to discuss Kosovo reconstruction, said the refugees were "obligated to leave," but acknowledged that arranging their departure would be a slow, tough process. Of concern to Schily are illegal residents who have been there for a relatively long time. "The 15,000 that came recently from Macedonia we expect will probably want to return quickly," Schily told ZDF television. "The other 180,000 who came before will take somewhat longer." Schily and the ministers agreed that those who refuse to go voluntarily may be forced to leave. Ministers also said all 16 German states would participate in reconstruction in Kosovo "to promote the quick return of all refugees," said the meeting chairman, Saxony Interior Minister Klaus Hardraht. [Some 200,000 Kosovo Albanians in Germany must leave, interior minister says – www.ap.org

SERBIA: KOSOVO SERBS NEED AID URGENTLY 29 Jun. 99 – Fearing vengeance from returning Kosovo Albanians, about a quarter of the Serbs in Kosovo – more than 75,000 – have fled the province in the 18 days since Serbian forces began pulling out, said Yugoslav Red Cross officials, reports the New York Times. They said they were running short of food and other supplies to care the refugees that they did not expect and are not prepared to handle. UNHCR's senior official in Belgrade, Eduardo Arboleda, said the plight of the Serbs is urgent, although not yet desperate. He said, too, that the world has an obligation to act quickly to help the homeless Serbs just as it acted to help the Albanians. "There is a risk the international community will not maintain its objectivity and sensitivity," he said. The trigger for this latest exodus was the success of NATO's effort to undo the forced exodus of nearly one million Albanians from Kosovo. "The Serbs are very much under siege and very much want to get out," said Dennis McNamara, UNHCR's special envoy. AP reports a WFP official, Paula Biocca, appealed yesterday for more assistance and media attention for Serb refugees fleeing Kosovo, asserting that a new humanitarian disaster is being overshadowed by the earlier exodus of ethnic Albanians. [New Flood of Refugees, 75,000 Serbs, Strains Aid Resources – www.nytimes.com; Aid worker: abandoned Kosovo Serb refugees face uncertain future – www.ap.org]

KOSOVO: SERBS 'ETHNICALLY CLEANSED' 29 Jun. 99 – Serbian Orthodox bishops marked the occasion of the Serbs' epic defeat by Turks 610 years ago yesterday with a plea to the international community to prevent them being run out of Kosovo, reports Reuters. "Serbs have not decided to leave Kosovo but they are being forced to – and it is all happening under the protection of the United Nations," said Bishop Artemije of Kosovo. He said that with Serbs being murdered, churches ransacked and priests threatened, the Serbs were now the ones being "ethnically cleansed." The Financial Times reports the flight of Serbs from Kosovo threatened to develop into a full-blown exodus yesterday after Church leaders warned they would stop co-operating with the UN unless NATO peacekeepers provided more security. Bishop Artemije, Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serb Orthodox Church, and Momcilo Trajkovic, leader of the small opposition Serbian Resistance Movement warned western governments: "If nothing is done in the nearest future, we are seriously afraid that all Kosovo Serbs would be forced to leave the province." The Guardian reports not a single ordinary civilian came to the event. The Los Angeles Times also reports. [Bishops plead that Serbs not be forced out of Kosovo – www.reuters.com; Church leaders warn of Serb exodus after rise in revenge attacks – www.ft.com; Clergy Assails Global Community Over Serbian Exodus – www.latimes.com; Dispirited Serbs turn on Milosevic – www.guardian.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: 'VULNERABLE' KOSOVAN GYPSIES 29 Jun. 99 – Tales of murder, rape and pillage have spread terror among Kosovo gypsy refugees in Macedonia, who say they won't go home while ethnic Albanians hold sway in Kosovo, reports Reuters. About 20,000 Kosovo gypsies joined tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians taking refuge in their impoverished Balkan neighbour, according to Amdi Bajram, a Macedonian parliamentary deputy and president of the Roma Emancipation Party representing gypsies. Many have sought refuge in the colourful patchwork of crude dwellings that make up Topana, a 300-year-old gypsy quarter of Skopje. "They are a vulnerable group," said UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort. "They were verbally and physically attacked even in the camps, where the atmosphere had a tinge of mediaeval mass hysteria." Liberation reports in more detail on the Gypsies' relationship with Serb authorities in Kosovo. [Tales of terror stop Kosovo gypsies' going home – www.reuters.com; Roms forced out for collaboration with Serbs – www.liberation.fr]

KOSOVANS: LIKE IRAQI KURDISH CRISIS? 29 Jun. 99 – The Kosovo crisis and the Iraqi Kurdish crisis in June 1991 have similarities, says logistician Thomas Goltz, in the Los Angeles Times. In both cases most journalists focussed – to the point of overkill – on the human misery spilling over the frontiers of the war zone. Then came the time of return, and if the Kurdistan experience is any guide, the coming weeks and months in Kosovo will not be pretty. In Kurdistan, the tensions between the two traditional leaders, Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, over control of the "grey market" trade in fuel oil across the frontier to Turkey eventually boiled over into a short and nasty civil war. The result was the pullout of almost all Western aid personnel in the region. One thing that is almost a certainty will be the smuggling and black-marketeering in international relief aid back across the frontiers with the erstwhile refugee host states Albania and Macedonia. Still, compared with the aftermath of a dozen other, mainly ethnic conflicts that have rocked the world over the past decade and spawned huge refugee outflows, the Kurdistan operation is still regarded as a "success" and the operative paradigm for the "phase two" mission begun in Kosovo. The people are going home, and no matter how shattered and blasted and ruined those homes may be, that is certainly a better option than remaining in refugee camps. [Same Script, But Hope for a Better End in Kosovo – www.latimes.com]

KOSOVO NOTES 29 Jun. 99 – Reuters reports FIFA and UEFA are backing a UNHCR and UNICEF scheme to provide free soccer equipment for the children of Kosovo to help them forget the horrors of war. Xinhua reports China has denied that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has sought political asylum in China. Anatolia reports Kosovo refugees continued to return from Turkey; the Interior Ministry said 4,960 Kosovar refugees had left by Sunday.

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