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

KOSOVARS: LANDMINES INJURING RETURNEES – W.H.O. 16 Jul. 99 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday said Kosovo has had one of the world's highest rates of injury from landmines since thousands of refugees started streaming home last month, reports Reuters. Mines have maimed or killed some 150 Kosovo Albanians in the province since the start of mass returns after the end of the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The Geneva-based UN health agency said its survey of victims in Kosovo hospitals found an incidence rate of 10 in 100,000 for anti-personnel mine injuries during the first month of returns, one of the highest in the world. [UN study finds mines taking heavy toll in Kosovo – www.reuters.com]

KOSOVARS: UN AGENCIES NEED RESOURCES 16 Jul. 99 – Although it is a time for drawing the "lessons of Kosovo," not much is being said about the United Nations, says Britain's former UN ambassador, Sir David Hannay, in the Financial Times. When it is mentioned, it is in the context of blaming it – rather than its member states – for the UN's paralysis and marginalisation in the run-up to the conflict, and the inadequacies of its humanitarian agencies in handling the tide of refugees. There are few less palatable spectacles than the allocation of blame when a major humanitarian catastrophe catches the international community unprepared. Governments and NGOs are particularly adept at ensuring the UN's humanitarian agencies, which are professionally inhibited from answering back, catch it in the neck. This is not to suggest there were not weaknesses and failures by UNHCR and other agencies. But how many of those were due to the unwillingness of member states to give resources and to draw operational conclusions from previous crises? Despite an acute shortage of funds, the UN did a remarkably good job. Extreme malnutrition and epidemics were avoided in the refugee camps. It would have made the task easier had the UN agrencies had access to a drawing facility so they could allocate resources without waiting for donor decisions. It might also have been useful for those planning military action to have worked up detailed plans with the UN agencies in case things went awry. The UN and its humanitarian agencies must be given the resources to do its job. It must be rescued from a hand-to-mouth existence. [Balkan scapegoat – www.ft.com]

ALBANIA: LOOTED CAMPS STAIN REPUTATION 16 Jul. 99 – Looting of abandoned refugee camps set up in Albania for Kosovo Albanians has tarnished the nation's record for sheltering its brethren during the Kosovo conflict, reports Reuters. Europe's poorest country, Albania had won international praise for accommodating half a million refugees from Kosovo. But now that most have returned home, some of the installations set up by Western countries in Albania have been stripped bare by Albanian gangs often poorer than the refugees from Kosovo. "It's not the way to end a very successful operation," said Lt-Col Andy Williams of Britain, chief of public information at AFOR, the NATO humanitarian force in Albania. AFOR and UNHCR said they were concerned about the safety at the camps and the aid workers managing them. But neither is responsible for patrolling the camps. This is a job for Albanian authorities. [After refugees go, some Albanians loot camps – www.reuters.com]

SERBIA: KOSOVO SERBS SQUEEZED 16 Jul. 99 – Two thousand pensioners marched through Belgrade yesterday to denounce Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for trying to prop up his government by squeezing vulnerable Serbs, reports the Guardian. Anger spread after it emerged the government had also turned the screw on Serb refugees refusing to return to Kosovo by withholding their pensions and barring their children from schools. The announcement that retired people must return to Kosovo to collect their pensions was condemned by UNHCR, which estimated some 136,135 people have fled there since last month. Teachers in the city of Nis said they had been told to bar refugee children from classes when school begins next month. State-controlled media have encouraged the refugees to leave Serbia by trumpeting the estimated 10,000 that have returned to Kosovo and playing down ethnic Albanian attacks. Cash-strapped local authorities have been unable to feed the refugees and the Red Cross in Serbia was already stretched by 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia. International odium for Serbia has kept humanitarian aid to a trickle, mostly food packages from Russia and the Greek Orthodox Church. Le Monde adds the exodus of Serbs from Kosovo is continuing and few are returning to the province. Inside Kosovo, Serbs are also fleeing internally to regroup at key locations in Kosovo. Serbs will soon be only 5% of the population. [Milosevic turns the screw – www.newsunlimited.co.uk; Kouchner will have full powers in Pristina – www.lemonde.fr]

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