- Title: ALBANIA: KOSOVO REFUGEES ARRIVE IN SOUTHEAST ALBANIA.
- Date: 8th April 1999
- Summary: KORCE, AND TIRANA, ALBANIA (APRIL 7, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) KORCE 1. TV/PAN: WIDE OF INSIDE OF SPORTS STADIUM SHOWING REFUGEES 0.10 2. GV/MV: VARIOUS OF REFUGEES TALKING AND SLEEPING (3 SHOTS) 0.24 3. MV/TV: BABY WITH MOTHER/ REFUGEES BREAKING BREAD (2 SHOTS) 0.33 4. MCU: CHILDREN EATING 0.39 5. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH)
- Embargoed: 23rd April 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KORCE AND TIRANA, ALBANIA
- Country: Albania
- Reuters ID: LVA6JADIWX1G8YAURRIVGLQ7NVTJ
- Story Text: Around 6,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees arrived in
southeastern Albania on Wednesday, saying they had been bussed
there against their will by Macedonian police from Blace on
Macedonia's borders.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) said around half of them were immediately taken
in by local people in the town of Korce and the remainder were
in a sports stadium in the town.
The Albanian news agency ATA quoted refugees as saying
they had been forced to board buses and maltreated by
Macedonian police.
Initial reports that 4,000 more people had arrived in
other villages and towns in the area had proven to be
incorrect.
"They are from Blace, they are exhausted and some of them
are shocked and angry," OSCE spokesman Andrea Angeli told
Reuters in Tirana.
International aid agencies have concentrated their efforts
on the northern town of Kukes, the main refugee collecting
point, and have virtually no presence in Korce.
Tens of thousands of Kosovars had spent days of misery in
squalid conditions at Blace after fleeing violence and
harassment at the hands of Serbian forces only to find that
Macedonia would not let them in.
They suddenly vanished during the night and the United
Nations refugee agency UNHCR had expressed concern for the
wellbeing of around 30,000 refugees from Blace which it said
remained unaccounted for.
Angeli said refugees had been brought to Korce by bus and
38 had required hospital treatment on arrival.
ATA quoted one man as saying that after four days waiting
in vain at Blace, he had been obliged by police to board a bus
for a 10-hour journey to southeastern Albania.
"Yesterday evening they made us get on buses, hitting us
with batons," it quoted him as saying.
Albania, Europe's poorest country, has borne the brunt of
the mass exodus of refugees from Kosovo, which began in
earnest after NATO launched attacks on Yugoslavia on March 24.
At least 280,000 Kosovars had come here by Tuesday.
Yugoslavia closed the main border crossing from Kosovo
into Albania at Morina early on Wednesday and the flow of
refugees, which had been running at 30,000 to 40,000 a day,
was dramatically halted.
Morina, which the OSCE said was closed at 3 a.m.on
Wednesday, was deserted.Reuters correspondent Linda Spahia
saw 26 people cross through, saying they had been ordered from
their homes nearby several hours earlier by Serb soldiers.
Albanian border guards said this was the only group that
came through on Wednesday.
The area between the two countries' frontier posts was
littered with rubbish, testimony to the almost non-stop
two-week influx of exhausted and frightened refugees.
Angeli said he understood Serbian soldiers had been
telling Kosovo refugees it was safe for them to go home
because of a unilateral ceasefire declared by Yugoslavia for
the Orthodox Easter.
The ceasefire was dismissed by NATO, which launched fresh
attacks on Yugoslav targets during the night and again on
Wednesday afternoon
The chief of the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees, Sadako Ogata, arrived in Tirana on Wednesday.
She said she had come for talks with the Albanian
government and also to see how UNHCR personnel were coping
with the refugee situation.
Earlier at a news conference in Rome, Ogata said the
agency had been caught off guard by the number of ethnic
Albanians displaced since the NATO air strikes began.
"I personally did not foresee expulsions in a way that was
organised and forced and that have brought the number of
people much, much higher than we had expected."
Also arriving in Tirana on Wednesday, were 400 soldiers
from the United States who had come to help with the relief
effort.
They joined other Americans and French soldiers at base
camps in the Albanian capital.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None