16 July 1999

UNHCR Increasingly Alarmed by Attacks on Serbs and Roma in Kosovo

(Numerous reports of killings, abductions and forced expulsions) (600)
By Wendy Lubetkin 
USIA European Correspondent

Geneva -- The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
says it is increasingly alarmed by the number of attacks against Serbs
and Roma in Kosovo, including killings, kidnappings and forced
expulsions, and by what appears to be a "systematic campaign" to
destroy Serb homes.

"There have been a string of incidents this week involving
minorities," said UNHCR spokesperson Kris Janowski. "Two refugees -- a
Bosnian Serb and a Krajina Serb -- were abducted Monday from a refugee
collective center in downtown Pristina. We had to move the entire
collective center to another safer location."

In Pristina earlier in the week, about a dozen homes and an Orthodox
church were set on fire, and three Serbs were reported to have been
shot, Janowski told a July 16 press briefing. In the Mitrovica region,
a group of 29 mostly elderly Serbs and Roma turned up after being
expelled from their homes and walking 80 kilometers through the
mountains.

In Prizren, in the space of less than one week, nearly 50 houses were
set on fire in what UNHCR said appears to be "a systematic campaign"
to destroy Serb homes.

"Of course it is extremely difficult to build reconciliation on so
many graves," Janowski said. "Nonetheless, what is happening to the
minorities in Kosovo today somehow diminishes the huge redress of
injustice which happened when the air strikes ended and for the first
time in the Balkans, the people ethnically cleansed from their homes
were allowed to go back."

The KFOR peacekeeping force currently has the primary responsibility
for security in the province and in some areas is providing 24-hour
protection to frightened groups of Serbs. "They are doing a very good
job. They are guarding a number of groups of minorities. They are
conducting foot patrols and they are doing everything they can to
prevent these kinds of things from happening," Janowski said.

German KFOR troops keep constant watch over the Orthodox seminary in
Prizren which now shelters 167 people: 140 Serbs, 20 Albanians and 7
Romas. Reacting to repeated attempts to set fire to Prizren's Orthodox
Church, KFOR has also reinforced its protection in the old quarter of
the city.

"Without KFOR, things would be a lot worse," Janowski said.
Nonetheless, Janowski said, UNHCR is trying to make sure it does not
give a false sense of security to minorities in Kovoso. "We are saying
that it is extremely difficult. But there are really not too many
options at the moment."

Those who have fled to Serbia are also facing "a very difficult
situation," he said. "They are deprived of all kinds of benefits,
unable to get tickets for fuel, and essentially under pressure to go
back to Kosovo."

Janowski said it is difficult to predict how the security situation
will develop. "We believe that it will probably improve with the
arrival of international police. With tensions and emotions subsiding
a little bit over time, it'll probably get better."

UN spokesperson Therese Gastaut said the UN wants to send in an
international police force "as soon as possible" but still has no date
for its deployment. "As we have explained over and over again,
policemen are not sitting in barracks waiting to come to help us.
These are people who are working in their respective countries."

She noted that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly appealed
to the 30-some countries that have pledged policeman to try to make
them available as rapidly as possible.