ALBANIA: NATO OFFICIALS VISIT NORTH EAST TO ASSESS REFUGEE CRISIS ON BORDER WITH KOSOVO

Record ID: 275088

  • Title: ALBANIA: NATO OFFICIALS VISIT NORTH EAST TO ASSESS REFUGEE CRISIS ON BORDER WITH KOSOVO
  • Date: 8th June 1998
  • Summary: BAJRAM CURRI, NORTHERN ALBANIA (JUNE 7, 1998) (RTV) 1. SLV ITALIAN HELICOPTERS LANDING IN FOOTBALL STADIUM 0.09 2. LV ITALIAN SOLDIERS JUMPING OUT OF HELICOPTER AND SECURE AREA (4 SHOTS) 0.32 3. MV NATO OFFICIALS WALKING 0.38 4. MV NATO OFFICIALS ENTER TRUCK/ SCU BOY SITTING ON FENCE HELICOPTER IN DISTANCE / HAS SOLDIERS BY HELICOPTER / AR
  • Embargoed: 23rd June 1998 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BAJRAM CURRI, NORTHERN ALBANIA/ PADESH AND UNKNOWN LOCATION NEAR ALBANIAN/KOSOVO BORDER, ALBANIA
  • City:
  • Country: Albania
  • Reuters ID: LVADZ2AEV8GEJ3LAVY9PLKOW39K3
  • Story Text: NATO (NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION) officials have visited northeastern Albania to gather information on the refugee crisis and assess the situation on the border with Serbia's neighbouring Kosovo province.

    Meanwhile, about 50 armed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been spotted trekking through the mountains in northern Albania towards the Kosovo border and hundreds of Kosovo Albanian refugees continue to pour into Albania.

    Officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) on Sunday (June 7) met Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) staff and officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other relief agencies during their eight-hour trip to the area.

    They also visited the border, accompanied by Albanian military officials.

    An OSCE official said the two NATO staff, one British and one American, had flown to Bajram Curri, 225 km northeast of Tirana, from Brindisi in southern Italy aboard an Italian army helicopter.

    The officials did not say what action, if any, NATO might take on the Kosovo crisis.

    A joint military exercise is due to be held before the end of August.

    Meanwhile on Sunday, about 50 members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in full uniform and carrying Kalashnikovs were spotted trecking into the mountains towards the Albanian-Kosovo border on Sunday, pulling mules loaded with crates of ammunition.

    The guerrillas wore camouflaged military fatigues, with the KLA's trademark black and red emblem patched onto their arms.

    Towns in northern Albania have become outposts and recruiting centres for the KLA, which has evolved from a shadowy organisation of a few hundred people into a force that controlled some 30 percent of Kosovo until last week.

    The clashes have unleashed a tide of refugees who trek across the mountainous border into Albania with harrowing accounts of bombings, bombardments and massacres.

    NATO has said it will send a team to Tirana next week to assess how to help Albania cope with thousands of refugees pouring over the border from Kosovo and to consider how they can help Albania's army.

    Some 250 people have died in Kosovo since February in fighting between ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of the population, and Serbian forces.Kosovo Albanians want independence, while Serbia has offered them limited autonomy.

    The last week of violence in western Kosovo alone has left scores, perhaps hundreds, of people dead and their villages razed after Serb security forces launched an operation to reopen roads once controlled by the KLA.

    None of the reports can be independently confirmed, however, as the battle zone is sealed by both the Serbs and the KLA.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register