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

MACEDONIA: OGATA LEADS CONVOY HOME 5 Jul. 99 – UNHCR chief Sadako Ogata led a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees home to Kosovo today, saying she expected the refugee crisis to be over soon, reports Reuters. "I'm very happy that I can go back with you," Ogata told the refugees as they waited on buses outside the Stankovic refugee camp in Macedonia to start the return journey to Kosovo. UNHCR spokeswoman Maki Shinohara said Ogata was escorting the refugees home during a two-day visit as a gesture intended to mark the end of their long ordeal. The convoy of seven buses with 200 refugees was part of the UNHCR's organised repatriation of refugees from neighbouring countries. Out of nearly one million displaced from Kosovo, more than half have already returned on their own. Of a quarter million refugees who fled to Macedonia, only about 27,000 remain – 12,000 in refugee camps and the rest with host families. Reuters adds Macedonians in the largely ethnic Albanian city of Tetovo are selling their houses, saying they no longer feel at home there. [UN commissioner Ogata leads Kosovo refugees home + Macedonians sell homes, flee ethnic Albanian city – www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: MANY STILL RETURNING 5 Jul. 99 – Large numbers of Kosovan refugees continue to leave Albania for Kosovo, Albania's information ministry said yesterday, reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. About 305,000 refugees returned to Kosovo over the past two weeks, while about 218,000 others have gathered in Kukes waiting to cross into Kosovo, officials said. Some of the refugees are returning in their own vehicles; others are using hired vehicles or transport organised by the Albanian government and UNHCR. About 500 refugees left Tirana yesterday on government buses and trains bound for Kukes, while more than 6,000 others left in their own vehicles. "At present rates, we expect the refugees to leave Albania in a matter of two or three weeks," a ministry official said. Up to 20,000 refugees are leaving Albania spontaneously every day without any support from the Albanian government or UNHCR, according to Albanian officials. [More than 300,000 Kosovar refugees have left Albania, say officials – www.dpa.com]

GERMANY: REPATRIATION SET, DESPITE UNHCR 5 Jul. 99 – Germany says it will start repatriating Kosovo Albanian refugees on Wednesday, reports BBC News. Interior Minister Otto Schily, in an interview with the magazine Focus, said the refugees would be flown back on a voluntary basis and each would be given a resettlement payment of some US$250. He said Germany wanted to return every single refugee to Kosovo as quickly and safely as possible. Germany took in some 15,000 refugees, more than any country outside the Balkans. Appeals by UNHCR to delay the repatriations until next spring have provoked sharp criticism in Germany. AP reports Klaus Hardraht, conservative interior minister of Saxony state, told Focus that the UNHCR timeframe was "unrealistic," adding that the destruction in Kosovo, especially in the cities, is "not as bad as originally feared." His Bavarian colleague, Guenther Beckstein, accused UNHCR of incompetence. "They'd rather leisurely set up offices for their employees in Kosovo than bring the refugees back quickly," he was quoted by Focus as saying. AFP adds Canada will begin flying Kosovan refugees back home this week, Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard said Friday. [Germany to start repatriating Kosovo refugees – http://news.bbc.co.uk; Germany to begin flying refugees back to Kosovo soon – www.ap.org; Canada to start repatriating Kosovar refugees who want to go home – www.afp.com]

KOSOVO: MANY STAYED AT HOME 5 Jul. 99 – During NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, Western governments took up statements from UN refugee officials that a huge number of Kosovans had disappeared into the hills and might have been massacred, reports the Observer. The reports spoke of '100,000 missing.' Now it appears that reports by refugees arriving in Albania that Djakovica had been 'cleansed' of Albanians were false. The town was Serb in the street, but Albanian at home. "Some Albanians here estimate that as many as 25 to 30% hid in their homes throughout the war. That means around 30,000 people," said Louis Gentile, UNHCR representative in Djakovica. Similar proportions may apply in Prizren and Pristina. The exception seems to be Pec, where more than three-quarters of the Albanian homes were burnt and destroyed. ['Disappeared' Kosovans emerge – www.newsunlimited.co.uk]

KOSOVO: SERBS LEAVE DESPITE PLEAS 5 Jul. 99 – Kosovo's Serbs, both natives and refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, are leaving, despite pleas from Belgrade, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the United Nations and, in a much more muted way, from the ethnic Albanian leadership, reports Reuters. The UN temporary administration acted last week to try to stem the outflow by getting leaders of the provisional rebel-led ethnic Albanian government and Serbian church and political leaders to issue a joint statement calling for an end to violence and supporting a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Hashim Thaqi, the KLA leader and interim Prime Minister of Kosovo, said he also wanted Serbs to stay. However, many ethnic Albanians say it is too late for that – and many Western officials privately agree. Meanwhile AFP reports Yugoslavia's minister for refugees, Bratislava Morina, yesterday said around 8,000 Serbs have returned to Kosovo after fleeing when NATO troops entered. "There are signs that the situation is improving in Kosovo ... that's why more people who fled are returning," Morina told Tanjug. The Daily Telegraph adds Astrid Heiberg, president of the Red Cross (ICRC), arrived in Belgrade yesterday for a four-day assessment of Serb refugee crisis. She will visit several towns where the Serbs have sought refuge, shunned by authorities and the media. [Serbs anxious to flee Kosovo despite pleas to stay – www.reuters.com; 8,000 Serbs have returned to Kosovo: Yugoslav minister – www.afp.com; Red Cross monitors refugee crisis – www.telegraph.co.uk]

KOSOVO: GYPSIES NEED AID 5 Jul. 99 – For 5,000 Kosovo Gypsies, the latest refuge is a school in Kosovo Polje, where deteriorating sanitary conditions may herald a summer of epidemics, reports AFP. Chased from Kosovo by ethnic Albanians, who consider them collaborators in ethnic cleansing, the Gypsies were then pushed back into Kosovo by Serbs. Gypsies are calling on the international community to come to their aid. Some plan to take the letter to UNHCR's office in Pristina. Health problems are growing in the makeshift camp, where space and water are growing scarce as refuse builds up. "The sanitary and medical situation is explosive," says Vincent Cadiergue of the French charity Medecins du Monde. "We have respiratory problems, diarrhoea, scabies and other skin infections . . . If an epidemic, like meningitis or cholera, breaks out, it'll be a nightmare," he said. Meanwhile Reuters reports truckloads of Gypsies abandoned their homes in the Kosovo village of Rodesh this weekend for fear of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians, and fled to Montenegro under the protection of Spanish soldiers arranged by UNHCR. [Despised by Albanians and Serbs, Gypsies, too, are refugees – www.afp.com; Frightened gypsies flee Kosovo for Montenegro – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVO NOTES 5 Jul. 99 – The International Herald Tribune reports Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday appointed the health minister of France, Bernard Kouchner, as his chief representative to run the civilian operation to rebuild Kosovo and oversee the return of refugees. The Washington Post reports on the murder of ethnic Albanian leader Fehmi Agani after being turned away at the Macedonian border. The Times reports French authorities are to close a centre for Kosovan refugees in Calais because they say it has become a magnet for the Albanian mafia offering to smuggle Kosovans into Britain.

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