Kosovo: A Human Tragedy; United Nations Efforts Aim To Alleviate Suffering Of 800,000.

The United Nations is spearheading international efforts to address a sweeping humanitarian crisis - characterized by one of the largest refugee flows in Europe in the 20th century, with nearly 800,000 men, women and children having fled their homes in the Serbian province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

The massive exodus of Kosovo Albanians took place over a number of weeks after the onset on 24 March of bombing by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces of specific sites in the FRY, a campaign launched following the rejection by the Yugoslav authorities of a political settlement. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it was tragic that diplomacy had failed, but there were times when the use of force "may be legitimate in the pursuit of peace". At the same time, it was the Security Council, he stressed, that had the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.

On 3 June, FRY President Slobodan Milosevic accepted the principles of a political solution worked out in consultation with Finland's President Martti Ahtisaari and Russian Federation Special Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin. On 10 June, the Security Council authorized an international civilian and security presence in Kosovo, adding a new dimension of responsibility for the United Nations.

Perilous Price Peace

"Nothing is really important to you and, in fact, you neither love nor hate, for to do either you must at least for a moment stand outside yourself, express yourself, forget yourself, go beyond yourself and your vanity. But that you cannot do; nor is there anything for which you would do so even were you able. Someone else's sorrow cannot move you, how much less hurt you; not even your own sorrow unless it flatters your vanity. You desire nothing and you find joy in nothing. You are not even envious, not from goodness but from boundless egoism, for you do not notice the happiness or unhappiness of others. Nothing can move you or turn you from your purpose. You do not stop at anything, not because you are brave, but because all the healthy impulses in you are shrivelled up, because save for your vanity nothing exists for you, neither blood ties nor inward considerations, neither God nor the world, neither kin nor friend. You do not esteem even your own natural capacities. Instead of conscience it is only your own wounded vanity that can sting you, for it alone, always and in everything, speaks with your mouth and dictates your actions."

- From "The Bridge on the Drina" (1945) by Ivo Andric, Yugoslav Nobel Prize winner for Literature

Sergei Vinogradov of the UN Chronicle reports:

It was a heart-wrenching scene: frail old men and women, infants, young children and their parents, angry-eyed young men, tearful teenaged girls, some trudging along mountain roads, some in haycarts piled high with household possessions, their numbers growing by the thousands every day.

The Security Council on 14 May, in reaffirming the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety and dignity, called for access for United Nations and other humanitarian personnel operating in Kosovo and other parts of the FRY. It adopted resolution 1239 (1999) by 13 votes to none, with 2 abstentions (China, Russian Federation).

At the outset of the meeting, a minute of silence was observed in tribute to the families bereaved by the conflict. Briefing Council members, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata - whose office is coordinating all UN relief activities in the region - said Kosovo was being emptied - brutally and methodically - of its ethnic Albanian population. Ethnic cleansing and mass forced expulsions were "yielding their tragic results faster than we can respond - faster than anybody's response". In spite of that, the humanitarian response was gaining momentum.

However, the fundamental problem was not the inadequate response: its root cause was the systematic and intolerable violence waged against an entire population and the failure to prevent it, Mrs. Ogata went on. Capacity of the receiving countries had been stretched to its limit and beyond. "Nobody had foreseen deportations, and a refugee outflow from Kosovo on such a massive scale and at such a speed."

Readying Response

The response to the refugee crisis could be described as consisting of four elements, the High Commissioner said. The first, "perhaps the biggest challenge, given the uninterrupted stream of refugees which compels us to constantly review contingency figures and plans", was the recaption of refugees at borders and their temporary accommodation in transit camps. The second was the search for more suitable accommodation beyond such camps. In that regard, since many - about half of those in the FYR of Macedonia, for example - were hosted by families, Mrs. Ogata praised the people in all countries of asylum who were sharing their meagre resources with refugees. "Were it not for their generosity, this would be an even greater tragedy", she stressed. UNHCR was coordinating projects with Governments and non-governmental orations to provide host families with cash grants and food assistance, and was setting up camps away from insecure border areas.

The third and fourth elements were related to the situation in the FYR of Macedonia - a country with a fragile ethnic and social balance - where the recaption capacity of transit centres, camps and host families had reached a breaking point. In that regard, a Humanitarian Evacuation Programme, under which refugees on a voluntary basis were flown from the FYR of Macedonia to third countries offering to host them temporarily, had been initiated by UNHCR, in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration. Another element was a "humanitarian transfer" of some refugees to Albania, with the agreement of the two Governments. that should only be carried out on a voluntary basis, she stressed.

I wish to make clear the root of the crisis before us. Before there was a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, there was a human rights catastrophe. Before there was a human rights catastrophe in Kosovo, there was a political catastrophe: the deliberate, systematic and violent disenfranchisement of the Kosovar Albanian people. In Kosovo, the world is looking to us to manage the humanitarian consequences of crimes against humanity: let us never forget this fact, as we seek to alleviate the suffering of civilians throughout the former Yugoslavia and the region at large.

- Secretary-General Kofi Annan

14 May 1999

Will It Be Safe to Go Back, or Should I Just Stay Where I Am?

High Commissioner Sadako Ogata told the Security Council that, as for the future, she foresaw a "mixed" scenario, with some refugees returning and others remaining in host countries. Voluntary return was not only the best solution for refugees; it was also the hope of a majority of them, but it was very unlikely that any refugees would return to Kosovo unless Serbian forces withdrew and international armed forces were deployed in the province to keep peace. If people felt that adequate security was provided to all civilians, a majority would choose to return, probably very quickly, the High Commissioner stressed. Also, a major reconstruction programme had to be carried out in Kosovo with extraordinary means and the intervention of bilateral donors and financial institutions. Reconstruction should extend to the FRY as a whole, and economic, social and environmental programmes would have to be carried out throughout the region, especially in those countries hosting large numbers of refugees. "A return plan will be carried out only if adequate security measures guarantee a solid, lasting peace, that requires more than just physical safety, and if the international community will implement a comprehensive, regional rehabilitation plan in the southern Balkans", Mrs. Ogata stated.

"There should not be a 'gap' left between immediate humanitarian and medium- to long-term development efforts if recurring conflicts are to be prevented and an inevitably fragile peace is to be reinforced. Our goal should not be just to bring refugees back, but to create durable conditions for them to stay. in safety and peace", she stressed.

On 12 May, UNHCR released a concept paper on a proposed framework for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to Kosovo. It was prepared by UNHCR, with input from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

On 9 June, another UNHCR paper, "Next Steps for the Return of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons to Kosovo", was released. It envisaged the possibility of large-scale spontaneous returns, the setting-up of seven UNHCR satellite offices, and the establishment of mobile teams to cover all of Kosovo's 30 municipalities.

'They Were Driven Out by Men in Uniform' . . .

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson on 13 May declared in Belgrade that the Yugoslav Federal Government must end immediately the "vicious human rights violations" its army, police and paramilitary forces were accused of in Kosovo, and commit itself to the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and internally displaced persons.

Speaking at the end of a tour of countries affected by the crisis, Mrs. Robinson said she had told Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic that accounts of incidents by hundreds of Kosovar Albanian refugees pointed to a "campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out with cold-blooded determination" by government military and security forces.

Mrs. Robinson said none of the refugees she had spoken to in camps in the FYR of Macedonia and Albania told her they had fled Kosovo because of the NATO aerial bombardment.

"The reason they gave for leaving was very clear: they were driven out by men in uniform. The Federal Yugoslav Government must stop this policy", the High Commissioner stressed.

On 22 April, she told the Commission on Human Rights that human rights violations in the FRY had not ceased, and again urged responsible authorities to work in concert with the international community to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict. She described a number of aspects of the conflict, including: increased flows of refugees and displaced persons; ethnic cleansing; summary and arbitrary executions; and killing and wounding of civilians. The refugees recounted how they were forced from their homes at gunpoint and were given only a few minutes to flee. Summary executions of ethnic Albanians were occurring on a large scale in several locations.

Mrs. Robinson also said that scores of civilians had been killed by NATO bombings, while hundreds of thousands of people and families had been left jobless and homeless because of the destruction of industrial facilities and residential building.

UN Agencies Resolve Rapid Rations Reaching Response

On 13 June, the first multi-agency convoy to Kosovo in nearly three months arrived in Pristina. The 50-vehicle convoy included 23 trucks loaded with 250 tons of relief aid, including "Humanitarian Daily Rations" or "Meals Ready to Eat", wheat flour, hygienic kits, blankets, tents, plastic sheeting and bottled water. The supplies were from UNHCR, WFP and UNICEF. As a second multi-agency 40-vehicle convoy arrived in Kosovo on 14 June, UNHCR began distribution of emergency aid. Four trucks carrying 50 tons emergency supplies arrived in Glogovac, and distribution began for an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 displaced persons.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 4 May, stating that poor farmers hosting Kosovar refugees in Albania and the FYR of Macedonia urgently needed agricultural aid to continue farming activities and maintain food production, launched an appeal to donor Governments for $5.5 million for emergency aid to Albania and $3.5 million to the FYR of Macedonia. According to FAO's assessment, around 12,000 rural families in Albania and more than 8,000 families in the FYR of Macedonia were providing food and shelter to refugees from Kosovo. In Albania, where annual per capital income was $650, around 30 per cent of the rural population live in poverty, agricultural technology was poorly developed and productivity is low.

One family, on the average, supported from 8 to 40 refugees. The host families were using their own money and food reserves to meet the essential needs of the refugees, FAO said. Money spent for the support of refugees would not be available for much needed agricultural inputs, which would have serious consequences for the farmers during the spring planting season when money for fertilizer was needed, and in the fall when money for wheat seeds would be needed.

The agency was providing maize seeds that could still be planted and was calling for the immediate supply of fertilizers, animal feed and backyard poultry. International support would also be needed for the supply of wheat seeds to be planted in the fall, FAO said. In the FYR of Macedonia, the food agency was immediately providing seed potatoes and maize seeds for $400,000 and fertilizer for $50,000. Around $3.5 million was urgently needed for the supply of seeds, fertilizers, laying hens, feed for dairy cows, and poultry feed.

While the immediate priority was to support the hosting families in Albania and the FYR of Macedonia who had stretched their own resources to the limit, FAO was also developing plans for agricultural recovery programmes that would support the return of the Kosovars once conditions permitted.

. . . And Two-thirds of Them Are Children

A global three-pronged appeal was launched by Olara A. Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, on 14 April in New York. At the conclusion of a four-day (1013 April) mission to the FYR of Macedonia and Albania, Mr. Otunnu called on the international community to: adopt concerted measures to meet the special needs of Kosovo refugee children-an Agenda of Action for the Children of Kosovo; take immediate action to address the particularly unacceptable conditions for some 40,000 refugees in the northern Albanian town of Kukes and; increase assistance for the host countries of Albania and the FYR of Macedonia.

"Children are the worst affected sector of the population in this crisis", Mr. Otunnu said. "They are the most traumatized by the violence, the most vulnerable to disease and malnutrition, and particularly affected by family separation and interruption of schooling. They constitute over 65 per cent of those expelled from Kosovo", he added.

The proposed Agenda for the Children of Kosovo should comprise, the Special Representative continued, among other things, the following measures: ensuring basic survival needs of children; increasing present capacities of UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross for tracing parents and reunification; mobilizing and training of a significant number of trauma counsellors, especially from within the refugee and host communities, including the provision of toys, games and balls in order to help restore a measure of normalcy to children's lives; ensuring continuity of schooling for the refugee children; providing support to host families; producing television and radio programmes devoted entirely to the needs of refugee children, focusing on entertainment, learning, peace education and serving as a source of basic information; relocating some of the refugees, on an entirely voluntary basis while preserving family unity, from the FYR of Macedonia and Albania to third countries; preventing recruitment and participation of children in hostilities; and precluding sexual exploitation of young women.

Doctor Tells Nurse to Be Silent about Instances of Rape

Alarming accounts of rape and abduction among Kosovar women refugees were made public by UNFPA on 25 May, as it released a report by Dominique Serrano-Fitamant, a psychologist specializing in sexual violence and trauma counselling, who had interviewed women refugees and health providers in camps around Tirana and Kukes in Albania in the first week of May. She spoke with some 35 women over a period of 10 days. Her report was the first attempt by a United Nations organization to verify the accounts and nature of sexual violence suffered by the refugees. The women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told her of rape, abductions, detentions and torture in a number of different sites.

"The villages of Gjakova, Pec and Drenitza in Kosovo were often indicated as places where kidnapping and collective rapes took place", Ms. Serrano-Fitamant said. "The women reported being individually raped by many men during a few hours but sometimes even for days. Women who were released had lacerations on their chests and evidence of beating on their arms and legs. . . . Some of the kidnapped women who were taken to unknown places have not yet reappeared, according to their families and neighbours. . . . It is primarily the young women who are rounded up in villages and small cities. The soldiers take groups of 5 to 30 women to unknown places in trucks, or they are locked up in houses where the soldiers live. Any resistance is met with threats of being burned alive."

The trauma of rapes and abductions led some women to describe themselves as being forever "dead", for such violations carried a tremendous stigma in their society. Many felt they risked being divorced or excluded from their community or family, or that the husband would try to take revenge for the rape.

Ms. Serrano-Fitamant described an incident she witnessed at a camp where a doctor said he had not heard of any reports of rape from the refugees in his care.

A female nurse at his side said that was not true, that there were many cases. The doctor told the nurse to be quiet.

In response to the report, UNFPA was providing training in counselling and psychological support to health professionals to enable them to offer help to victims of sexual violence. Also, local Albanian women's groups were to receive training in counselling. In April, UNFPA had sent emergency reproductive health supplies to Kosovar refugees in Albania and was working with the Albanian Ministry of Health, other United Nations agencies and NGOs to distribute the supplies to the refugees.

The kits, developed by a group of United Nations and non-governmental agencies, are meant to meet the reproductive health needs of refugees and displaced people in emergencies. They include clean delivery sub-kits for women who give birth in areas that lack medical facilities. The sub-kits include basic materials like soap, plastic sheetings, pictorial instructions and razor blades for cutting newborns' umbilical cords. The kits also include emergency contraception-also called the "morning after pill"-for victims of rape, which consists of an elevated dose of contraceptive pills which prevent pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of a sexual encounter.

According to the Fund's estimates, approximately 70,000 Kosovar women were either pregnant or breastfeeding and in need of pre-natal or post-natal care. There were still no accurate estimates for the number of Kosovar women who had been raped. However. reports indicated widespread sexual violence and raised the alarm that the women remaining in Kosovo were under great threat.

UNFPA activities with Kosovar refugees had been assisted by recent finding from the Danish, Japanese and Luxembourg Governments, the Panned Parenthood Federation of America and Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation. which has also committed funding to provide reproductive health services for refugees in other countries.

Empty Villages. Burned Houses. Looted Shops. Wandering Livestock. Unattended Farms. In Short, Kosovo Today.

On 9 June, United Nations agencies appealed for $473.4 million in emergency aid over six months for about 1.5 million people 'affected by the conflict in Kosovo, including for improvement of facilities in refugee host countries and provisions for the possible return of the more than 780,000 refugees and displaced people in the region. A week earlier, on 2 June, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, had told the Security Council, upon completion of the United Nations interagency needs assessment mission to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that the country was in a "general state of calamity, with important qualitative distinctions by region", In Kosovo, the mission had discovered a "depressing panorama of empty villages, burned houses, looted shops, wandering livestock and unattended farms". The extent of damage to and looting of private property throughout the province, and clear signs that inhabitants had fled on very short notice, probably in terror, were the most disturbing finding. In some areas, approximately 80 per cent of homes had been burned.

All arguments articulated by the Government - regarding the legitimacy of counter-insurgency operations against growing armed separatists, the terrorist activities of the Kosovo Liberation Army, including summary executions of security personnel and of "loyalist" Kosovar Albanians, the frequent cases of persecution of Serb minorities throughout Kosovo, and the irrational effect of the bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the behaviour of Serb individuals, including army and police personnel "even if combined, cannot account for, explain or justify, the extent and magnitude of the brutal treatment of civilian populations, leading to massive displacement inside the FRY and refugee outflows into neighbouring countries", he said.

In Serbia (excluding Kosovo province), the mission had seen "ample evidence of serious additional damage inflicted the NATO air strikes on an economy already debilitated as a result of sanctions and the breakup of the former Yugoslavia", which could "soon bring about a situation where the FRY will represent a complex humanitarian crisis", unless peace was restored, he stated.

Priority concerns throughout Yugoslavia, common to all regions, were: civilian casualties as a result of NATO bombardments; unemployment reaching crisis proportions due to the destruction of industrial plants and enterprises and the collapse of the country's economy; health and environmental impact of the destruction of chemical and other plants producing hazardous materials; damage to infrastructure providing basic services health, water supply, education, transport, telecommunications; extensive damage to electricity-generating and distribution facilities and heating plants, presenting an acute problem, especially in the face of the coming winter; serious impact on the educational system (schools and universities had been closed throughout the FRY since 24 March); adverse effects on medium-term agricultural production, especially in view of the destruction of the largest fertilizer plant near Pancevo; a serious landmine problem in Kosovo and the threat posed by unexploded ordnance in the country as a whole; psychological problems among the population and; the potential for irregular emigration from Serbia.

Montenegro's economy was precarious with the effects of sanctions and, to a much lesser extent, of NATO bonding. Like Serbia, it had many refugees and internally displaced persons - some 15 percent of the population - and deserved much credit for keeping its doors open. The Republic also needed substantial additional assistance, in order to satisfy the needs of its population, as well as of the internally displaced. "Repatriation of refugees will become increasingly difficult with the passing of time and as winter approaches", he stated. "The longer they remain abroad, the less likely they will be able to return. Even the most basic rehabilitation of shelter and essential services will require colossal efforts and resources and can only succeed both in Kosovo and the rest of the FRY if it commences swiftly."

Point of Fact: On 4 June, the International Monetary Fund assessed that the six countries most affected by the Kosovo crisis would need between $1.3 billion and $2.2 billion in external financing to cover balance-of-payments obligations and the costs of caring for refugees.

The Other Refugees

Some 500,000 Serb refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, many of whom had fled Croatia during "Operation Storm" in 1995, constituted the "second largest refugee caseload in Europe, and their plight should not be overshadowed by the Kosovo crisis", Mr. Vieira de Mello stated. Those refugees had the same rights and needs, and it was "important for the international community, as it attempts to provide assistance to the new refugees in Albania and Macedonia, not to neglect people who have been refugees for four years and whose subhuman condition will inevitably be aggravated by the ongoing conflict".