- Title: YUGOSLAVIA: KOSOVO ALBANIANS GIVEN OPPORTUNITY TO PHONE RELATIVES.
- Date: 27th June 1999
- Summary: PRIZREN, YUGOSLAVIA (JUNE 25 1999)(REUTERS) 1. GV/PAN: VARIOUS OF KOSOVO ALBANIANS LINING UP TO TELEPHONE RELATIVES 0.09 2. VARIOUS: ALBANIANS USING SATELLITE TELEPHONES (10 SHOTS) 1.10 3. GV/PAN: EXTERIORS OF PRIZREN PRISON, WHERE GERMANS ARE TAKING ALBANIANS THEY ARREST 1.21 4. CU: SOUNDBITE(German) STEFAN SCHWARTZMEIER, A GERMAN SOLDIER "They want to speak to an official here, probably because two members of the KLA are in captivity here." 1.41 5. CU: SOUNDBITE (Albanian) KLA SOLDIER REFKI MAZREDU: "We haven't handed our weapons in. It's not that easy. Because Albanians don't give their weapons in that easily. Everybody should know that, including Serbs and Germans. 1.53 6. GV: VARIOUS INTERIORS OF PRISON SHOWING GUARDS AND CELLBLOCKS (2 SHOTS) 2.02 7. MV/MCU: DOOR OPENS ON AN INMATE ARRESTED FOR CAR THEFT WHO IS CRYING AND BEGGING TO BE RELEASED (2 SHOTS) 2.25 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 12th July 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PRIZREN, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia
- Reuters ID: LVA15G1J52A3JZAKY0HQ57LYZ1QP
- Story Text: Hundreds of Kosovo Albanians were given the chance to
phone relatives thanks to a satellite telephone service set up
by the Save the Children Fund on Friday.
Meanwhile, German soldiers from the Kosovo peacekeeping
force who are in charge of the area showed Reuters Television
round a prison that they are running to illustrate how they
are dealing with a growing security problem.
Little is up and running in Kosovo so Save The
Children has set up phones outside a German NATO office, a bit
of peace of mind for free amid the horror of what is left of
the province.
Hundreds of people queued up on the first day of the
service on Friday (June 25).
For many, it was a chance to get in touch with relatives
or friends who were last heard of before NATO began bombing
Yugoslavia on March 24.
Prizren almost survived the conflict intact unlike
Djakovica, the scene of a massacre site being investigated
following Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes
indictment, or Pec, which was virtually reduced to rubble.
Further phone points will be set up there soon.
But as the Albanians were queuing up, German soldiers are
dealing with an increasing security problem.
Looting, rapes and intimidation have been reported in the past few
days and the prison at Prizren has been pressed into service.
On one tour of the facility, reporters saw a Kosovo
Albanian in a solitary confinement cell begging to be let out.
He had been arrested for car theft.
The German authorities are waiting for some form of
civilian government to be restored to the area so they can be
brought before the courts and tried.
Outside the jail, several members of the KLA police force
in black uniforms were waiting to speak to a German officer.
They said they had come to discuss how to deal with the
crimes that were being committed in the area.
But they said they had not handed in their weapons, an
obligation under the agreement the KLA signed with NATO last week.
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