Regional: Refugees/Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Kosovo

Region

• UNHCR headquarters estimates that there are 62,400 refugees in Montenegro. In the past 48 hours, 200 refugees entered Montenegro. Some 600 departed for Albania on April 28 via the Hani I Hotit border crossing.

Albania

• UNHCR headquarters estimates that there are 373,400 refugees in Albania. In the past 24 hours, 1,800 refugees entered Albania at the Morini border crossing, arriving from a variety of areas in Kosovo.
• The Government of Albania (GOA) reports that 105,000 refugees remain in the northern districts of Albania. 2,700 refugees were transferred from Kukes to other points in Albania on April 29.
• NATO plans to transfer of 30,000 refugees by air from Kukes to a camp near Shkoder within the next 10 days. NATO will also transport the refugees' personal affects including tractors.
• The current shelter capacity in Albania will be expanded in the next 30 days to host 148,000 refugees in camps and collective centers.
• International teams have identified seven possible shelter sites, three of which are immediately available. Consultations with the GOA are underway on approval of the seven sites.
• According to the World Food Program (WFP), the Durres-Kukes road is rapidly deteriorating. NATO has identified the repair of this road as a top priority. WFP is looking into alternative road routes that can be used for the delivery of relief supplies until the roadwork is completed.
• Lack of sanitation remains an urgent need in Kukes, where conditions are expected to worsen as temperatures rise. The GOA's Institute of Public Health reports that poor sewage and pipe systems pose continued sanitation problems, despite water chlorination activities. The lack of sufficient chlorination and low water supply remains a problem in some rural locations.
• Resources Management Services continues construction of the U.S. Government (USG) refugee camp in Fier with the assistance of Albanian labor and equipment.
• The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) reports that it is currently distributing food and non-food parcels to 250,000 beneficiaries in Albania—double the number originally estimated.
• WFP reports that based on the current refugee population, two-weeks worth of food stocks are now in place in all sub-offices.
• WFP reports that its strategic airlift capacity is being stepped up to ensure that 30 days worth of ready-to-eat food for the current 355,000 refugee population is in-country within two weeks.

Macedonia

• UNHCR headquarters estimates that there are more than 160,700 refugees currently in Macedonia. About 7,500 refugees entered Macedonia on April 29: 6,600 via Blace; 500 via Jazince; 150 via Tabanovce; and 250 crossed at an unofficial border crossing at Straza, west of Lojane. The Macedonian Red Cross and the Ministry of Interior estimate that 93,370 refugees are staying with host families and that 67,330 are living in refugee camps.
• The Cegrane refugee camp was opened earlier than expected on April 28 as other Macedonian refugee camps and transit reception centers are filled to capacity. The first phase of Cegrane camp was originally designed for 5,000 people, however UNHCR recommends housing 8,000 refugees based on their emergency standards for space. As of April 29, 8,000 refugees had moved into the new refugee camp.
• UNHCR has contracted the Macedonian Red Cross (MRC) to be the main distribution agency for humanitarian supplies to refugees not living in the camps. In addition to the MRC, there are several other local private voluntary organizations (PVOs) currently distributing humanitarian assistance to refugees in host families, including El Hilal, Caritas Macedonia, and Kalili Bamiresise. The Mother Teresa Society also has a local distribution network in Struga municipality.
• The USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) reports that the Macedonian Red Cross (MRC) is proceeding rapidly with registration of refugees with host families. The current number registered is 91,000. A second distribution MRC point has been established in Skopje, increasing the pace of distributions to refugees in host families.

Commodities

• No new information.

Financial Support

• To date the USG has provided over $183 million in response to the Kosovo crisis, beginning in March 1998.

** Some refugees were moved to third countries by the GOM w/o UNHCR/IOM involvement: 10,000 to Albania, 5,500 to Greece, 2,243 to Turkey, and 88 to Croatia.

Background:

• In late February 1998, following an unprecedented series of clashes in Kosovo between Serbian police forces and members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Serbian police raided villages in Kosovo's Drenica region, a KLA stronghold. The police reportedly burned homes and killed dozens of ethnic Albanians in these raids. Thousands of ethnic Albanians in Pristina protested Serb police actions, and were subsequently attacked by the police with tear gas, water cannons, and clubs.
• As a result of the fighting, thousands of Kosovar Albanians were displaced from their homes, many taking refuge with host families, while a smaller proportion (several thousand) took to the hills and forests.

Public Donation Information:

• In the interest of effective coordination of such public response, we encourage concerned citizens to provide monetary donations to appropriate organizations. USAID encourages the public to contact directly those private voluntary organizations (PVOs) currently working in the region to provide monetary donations. A list of those PVOs may be obtained from the USAID website at www.info.usaid.gov. The list is composed of PVOs that are registered with USAID and/or listed by InterAction, a coalition of voluntary humanitarian and development organizations that work overseas; InterAction can be contacted at 1-818-502-4288, or via the Internet at www.interaction.org. Those interested in providing specific technical relief services or commodities should contact Volunteers in Technical Assistance's (VITA) Disaster Information Center for information and guidelines (703) 276-1914.
• For more information, please contact the public donations hotline at 1-800-USAID-RELIEF, which is staffed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Since the hotline was established on April 6, FEMA has received a total of 43,631 calls.
• Past USAID/OFDA Factsheets can be obtained from the USAID web site at the following URL: http://www.info.usaid.gov/ofda/situation.html.