President's Report on ARC

American Refugee Committee
Friday, 28 May 1999

ALBANIA

ARC is providing emergency assistance to refugees in collective centers, which are usually public buildings like sports halls. Two centers, one in Korca and one in Golem, have been assisted, the former to provide water and sanitation facilities to some 1,500 refugees and the latter to provide food and personal necessities to refugees.

In Albania, as in Macedonia and Montenegro, the majority of refugees and displaced persons are sheltered in host families and in collective centers, and not in camps. The media focus so far has been on the camps since access to refugees is easy. Most non-governmental organizations have focussed on camps, ignoring, for the most part, refugees in host families. ARC has chosen to concentrate its efforts on refugees in host families and collective centers, and is doing so with support and encouragement of the authorities in the host counties, UNHCR, (the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the US government.

ARC is developing two programs in Albania: one focussed on collective centers, and one concentrating on public health. Concerning collective centers, many do not have adequate water and sanitation facilities. Consequently, ARC is targeting 100 of these centers to repair sanitation, shower and water access facilities. In addition, ARC plans to assist in rehabilitating newly identified buildings to receive refugees (roughly 100,000 refugees in Albania are in Kukes near the border with Kosovo and urgently require shelter in the interior of the country). ARC may also be supplying necessities such as beds, mattresses, sanitary supplies, and cooking utensils for refugees housed in collective centers.

As for public health, ARC is preparing to work in several prefectures to strengthen the local health care infrastructure to cope with the large number of refugees in host families. Assistance will be both curative and preventive. Dr. Walt Franz from the Mayo Clinic and Donovan Taylor, a nurse, have recently assessed needs at hospitals in the cities of Shkodra, Tirana and Kukes for ARC. Dr. Anne Goldfeld, an ARC board member, is expected to undertake a mission shortly where she will be focussing on assessing the needs in addressing tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. With regard to prevention, ARC is planning to work with several Albanian primary health care facilities to strengthen their ability to respond to the increased needs in such areas as mother and child health care, reproductive health, and psycho-social counseling. In addition, ARC will provide expertise in prevention of public health emergencies such as diarrhea and cholera, which are great concerns to Albanian health authorities as the hot weather approaches.

Albanian authorities are now starting to think about the particular needs of refugees during the winter months. Consequently, ARC may be working with UNHCR to assess and prepare collective centers for cold weather, such as repairing windows and doors and providing heat.

Finally, during a meeting with ARC President Tony Kozlowski and the Prime Minister of Albania, ARC was requested to consider providing technical assistance to the Minister of Local Authorities and his team of some 15 individuals who are managing Albania's response to the refugee crisis. (The Ministry of Local Authorities is the responsible Ministry in the Albanian government for refugees.) The Prime Minister noted that this team did not have any previous experience in refugee crisis management and needed training urgently. Kozlowski offered to try to identify and provide one or several experts both at the Ministerial and perfectoral levels for crisis management training and advice.

MONTENEGRO

ARC has a staff person currently on the ground assessing the situation. There are some 60,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo in Montenegro. This represents about 10% of the population. (They are technically internally displaced persons (IDPs) and not refugees since both Kosovo and Montenegro are part of Yugoslavia. However, the government of Montenegro wishes to assist the IDPs.) Initial assessments indicate that the best way to assist IDPs in Montenegro is to provide them with income generating opportunities. Proposals are now being drawn up to create employment in agriculture and waste management. Already, ARC is funding a small project in the resort town of Ulcinj on the Adriatic, which has been over-run by some 30,000 refugees. Many IDPs are starting to use the beaches and there have already been two drownings. UNHCR has appealed to ARC to provide life guards during the summer months to avoid further drownings. ARC will finance a program, which is managed and operated by UNHCR and refugee leaders.

MACEDONIA

The program in Macedonia is up and running and will be fully operational by the end of May. It consists of fielding six mobile medical teams in three areas of Macedonia (Skopje, Tetovo, and Kumanovo) where there are major concentrations of refugees. The objective is to assess and address the needs of the refugees in host families, and the additional outputs required by Macedonia health care system to meet the needs. This program has already received funding from UNHCR and the US government.

In a recent mission to Macedonia by ARC President Tony Kozlowski, he accompanied a mobile team visiting the village of Lojane, north of the city of Kumanovo and just 1,500 feet from the border of Kosovo. In this village of 3,000 persons, there are at least another 3,000 refugees all hosted in Macedonian families. (The host families are Macedonians of Albanian ethnicity.) The objective of the visit was to assess the needs of the community, the refugee families, and the village clinic. At the same time, an initial distribution of personal hygiene kits (large plastic buckets with a lid) developed by the ARC staff in Macedonia took place. The kits, consisting of soap, shampoo, detergent, toothbrushes, diapers, etc. were very well received by the refugees and their host families. The surveys which are being conducted by local ARC Albanian-speaking medical staff, will allow ARC to identify and start meeting the most pressing health and related needs, whether supplies, supplementary food, psycho-social assistance, mother and child health care or advice in reproductive health.

At the same time, ARC has been providing medical personnel to work in the camps. Starting with Dr. Tom Durant, an ARC board member, when he was in Macedonia a few weeks ago, we have since provided two short-term doctors to work with the German Red Cross in Stenkovic transit camp. Our country director is currently investigating the possibility of placing additional doctors and nurses in the camps or other locations.

Also, ARC Macedonia is developing a project to respond to the special needs of youth both in the camps and host communities. For the past several weeks, an ARC volunteer has been working with youth in the transit camp.

KOSOVO

Headquarters and field staff in the Balkans are also attempting to focus attention on the population within Kosovo. While it may be impossible to assist IDPs within Kosovo as long as the conflict lasts, ARC is beginning to plan for the repatriation and reintegration phase of the refugees and IDPs. Coordination among various ARC staff in the region is being emphasized, and ARC hopes shortly to start program concept development, especially through our office in Macedonia. We are fortunate to have several Kosovar Albanians on our staff in Macedonia, especially a doctor from Pristina, the capital.

BOSNIA

During a brief visit to Sarajevo to meet ARC's new country director, Paul Taylor, and the Bosnian staff, ARC's president had the opportunity to discuss the new refugee situation resulting from the Kosovo crisis with the UNHCR Chief of Mission and program officer. Since the beginning of the bombings, nearly 27,000 refugees have arrived in the Federation (5,500 Kosovar Albanians, and 20,500 Sandzak Muslims from Serbia), and 17, 600 Serbs from Serbia in the Republika Srpska for a total of over 44,000 in Bosnia. As in Albania and Macedonia, most of these refugees are in host families and some in collective centers and camps. UNHCR requested ARC to look at the needs of the refugees in host families, particularly special medical needs and psycho-social problems of vulnerable persons. There might also be particular medical needs in the camps.

UNHCR drew ARC's attention to another issue. Contingency plans are being prepared for a major influx of refugees from Montenegro if the political situation in that State (which together with Serbia makes up Yugoslavia) blows up. The planning figure for the influx is 100,000! UNHCR asked if ARC might be interested in site management, and provision of services to the refugees, e.g. counseling. ARC expressed interest, and our office in Bosnia will be exploring possibilities and may be developing programs in the near future.

ARC has been in this region since 1993 and has been a lead agency in facilitating the successful return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes or origin. This is accomplished through intensive one-on-one case work, negotiation with communities of return as well as rehabilitation and reconstruction assistance in Bosnia and Croatia. Throughout the region results of our efforts can be seen. Rebuilt houses and playgrounds, schools and clinics, new businesses opening and old ones retooling, and a semblance of normal life returning for many. But now, as history repeats itself in this region, ARC must double our efforts.

Thousands of lives have been lost in this mounting human tragedy, and fears that there may be a massive flight of ethnic Albanian refugees to other nations is already being realized. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been driven from their homes, their villages looted and burned despite the presence of foreign journalists who film weeping women and children running from their mountain villages. As individuals who are concerned with the world around us, we face the unpalatable choice of either getting involved or walking away. ARC has made its decision. Now we are counting on you to make yours. We have little in our power to prevent the onset of hostilities half a world away. But we do have the power to alleviate the suffering of the innocent.

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