Kosovo One Year Later: American Refugee Committee Concerned About Hardships, Increasing Instability

American Refugee Committee
Friday, 24 March 2000

The American Refugee Committee (ARC) expressed concern today about the hundreds of thousands of people who remain uprooted, many in perilous conditions, one year after NATO launched its 78-day air strike campaign against Yugoslavia.

Most of the approximately 850,000 ethnic Albanians who fled Kosovo during the conflict have now returned. "However, they still face significant hardships — burned out homes and businesses, landmines and unexploded ordnance, a shortage of basic services, and increasing ethnic tensions and instability," said ARC President Anthony Kozlowski.

Furthermore, more than 200,000 Serbs and Roma (gypsies) who fled Kosovo after NATO-led peacekeepers arrived remain in Serbia and Montenegro, many of them afraid to return for fear of retaliation. They joined some 500,000 Serbs who were previously displaced from Bosnia and Croatia.

Kozlowski said efforts to rebuild Kosovo were jeopardized by rising tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo and the Presevo region of southern Serbia. Thousands of ethnic Albanians have fled the Presevo area since last June, creating a new wave of displaced people.

He urged governments to provide the United Nations and NATO with adequate resources to develop a civil society and maintain public order in Kosovo.

"We are troubled that so many people who were affected by the Kosovo conflict continue to lead such precarious lives," Kozlowski said. "We will continue to pursue our overall objective in the region — to assist with the voluntary repatriation of all ethnic groups to their places of origin, whether Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia or Croatia."

ARC, which was one of the first non-governmental organizations to arrive in Kosovo after the NATO campaign ended, is now operating three emergency shelter programs in the Gjilane region in the southeastern part of Kosovo, where it has distributed shelter kits to families in five municipalities. ARC is also operating a "host family" program that provides building materials to families who have taken in displaced people from the Presevo region.

ARC also provides aid to displaced Kosovars in Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

ARC

The American Refugee Committee is an international nonprofit, non-sectarian organization providing multisectoral humanitarian assistance and training to more than one million people in Africa, Asia and Europe.

ARC works for the survival, health, and well-being of refugees, displaced persons, and those at risk, and seeks to enable them to rebuild productive lives of dignity and purpose, striving always to respect the values of those served.

For more information, or to contact American Refugee Committee, see their website at: www.archq.org