Kosovo - OFDA-06: 18-Sep-98
Kosovo - OFDA-06: 18-Sep-98
OFFICE OF U.S. FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE (OFDA)
BUREAU FOR HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE (BHR)
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
KOSOVO - Humanitarian Assistance
Information Sheet #6 September 18, 1998
Current Situation: On September 16, Serb forces began an offensive in areas
north of Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, for the first time since
the conflict began on February 27. The fighting has forced thousands of
ethnic Albanians (Kosovar) residents to flee after government forces
attacked 12 villages between Kosovska Mitrovica and Podujevo, about 20
miles north of Pristina. The region north of Pristina is believed to be one
of the two remaining strongholds of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the
other being the Drenica region in western central Kosovo.
On September 15, hundreds of Kosovars moved into Cirez after fighting in
nearby western villages ousted KLA forces on September 14-15. The KLA is
preparing to defend Cirez, their Drenica stronghold, from a Serb army and
Yugoslav security force assault. Cirez, about 18 miles west of Pristina,
has had between 10,000 to 15,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living
there for the last month.
On September 9, as many as 25,000 Kosovars were trapped on a dirt road
about 20 miles south of Pec as a result of the shelling of nearby villages,
such as Krusevac, Rasic, Barani, Celopek, and Kosuric. Women, children,
and old men retreated along a seven-mile column and many are now crowded
into the village of Istinic seeking refuge from an ongoing Serbian assault
in southwestern Kosovo. The villagers fled on tractors, wagons, and in
cars carrying their personal effects with limited water, food, or shelter
materials.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has provided
humanitarian daily rations (HDRs) and the Mother Teresa Society has
distributed bread provided by Serbian authorities. The IDPs failed to
approach the Serb distribution center in Istinic opened to respond to the
recent influx of an estimated 10,000 people.
In a related incident, some 3,200 Kosavar IDPs were stopped inside the
Montenegrin border and ferried by trucks and buses to Shkodra, Albania,
during the weekend of September 12-13. This was the first time since the
crisis in Kosovo began that IDPs were stopped and moved in their attempt to
relocate into Montenegro. The Government of Montenegro's parliament made a
decision on September 11 to close their border with Serbia to additional
Kosavar IDPs as Montenegro " no longer has objective conditions to receive
IDPs and refugees". The group was moved initially by Serb police from an
open-air camp in Istinic, Kosovo more than a week ago. UNHCR estimates
that 6,000-8,000 IDPs are camped along the border between Kosovo and
Montenegro.
President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a joint
statement on Kosovo at their Moscow summit meeting on September 2. The
statement expressed alarm at the continued deterioration of the situation
on the ground and the absence of meaningful negotiations between the
parties.
On September 9, President Clinton directed a drawdown of $20 million from
the USG's Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) fund to provide
additional relief to IDPs and refugees at risk due to the continuing
conflict in Kosovo. These new funds will be used for emergency food,
shelter materials, and other relief commodities provided by UNHCR, the
World Food Program (WFP), other U.N. agencies, the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In
particular, the funding will provide a major portion of the international
community's response to a recent U.N. consolidated humanitarian appeal for
$54.8 million to fund relief activities through December.
Affected Populations: IDPs forced out of their homes by the conflict have
been retreating from areas of fighting to forests and hillsides across
Kosovo. Since February, according to recent U.N. estimates, 283,296 people
have been made homeless and 200,000 remain displaced in Kosovo. A local
human rights organization has counted over 25,000 houses burned in Kosovo
and 500 people killed. The number of IDPs fleeing to Montenegro has now
reached some 44,000, while 20,000 IDPs have moved into other parts of
Serbia. In addition, between 17,000 and 20,000 have escaped the fighting
into Albania, 5,700 into Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 2,000 into Turkey, and 1,
000 are staying in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
Access: Access to villages continues to be a problem, with Serb forces
turning convoys away from the main highways, forcing them to traverse small
difficult roads and hindering aid from arriving to villages as quickly as
possible. However, multi-agency convoys led by UNHCR and WFP have
delivered relief supplies to Djinovce, Djakovica, Guncat, Prizren, Sedlare,
and Golubovac, Ponorce, Pec, Drelaj, and Dacaj. The relief supplies being
distributed include: flour, food parcels, cooking oil, beans, stoves,
sleeping pads, mattresses, high protein biscuits, HDRs, personal hygiene
items, and plastic sheeting, On September 11, a WFP-led convoy was denied
access beyond a Serbian police checkpoint in an area between Pec and Rozaj,
Montenegro, after being accused of having improper documentation. Mercy
Corps International (MCI) was able to deliver 145 MT of flour and 1,712
sleeping pads to assist IDPs who have crossed into Montenegro. On August
24, three ethnic Albanian humanitarian aid workers from the Mother Teresa
Society were killed near Malisevo while delivering food to the area via
convoy. The seven-truck convoy was shelled by Serbian police and the army
after passing through a Serb checkpoint.
Returnees: As the security situation improves in villages which have
undergone government offensives, residents are returning to access the
damage to their homes and to attempt to restart their lives. According to
UNHCR, some returns have occurred in the villages of Hoca Zagradska,
Ratkovac, Gede, and Orahovac. In the village of Radoste, which was heavily
damaged, villagers are returning to their village during daylight hours to
retrieve their possessions and tend to their livestock before returning to
the nearby woods at night. Political discussions are underway between the
Mayor of Pec and the U.N.'s Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM) to
return residents to the villages of Grabovac, Zlopek, and Lozane, north of
Pec, although villagers will require food, clothing, and hygienic items.
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance: U.N. agencies, international
organizations, and NGOs continue to hold coordination meetings to discuss
logistics, health, water/sanitation, security, and information issues.
Many of these organizations are distributing relief commodities for IDPs
through the Mother Teresa Society and the Yugoslav Red Cross.
Current OFDA Activities: On August 30, a four-person OFDA team arrived in
Kosovo. The team consists of the team leader, a health officer, and two
epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The team is based in Pristina. Initially accompanying the team was BHR's
Assistant Administrator Hugh Parmer, his Special Assistant Don Henry, OFDA
Deputy Director Bill Garvelink, and a USAID press officer. The team is
looking at health, shelter, and food security issues, and will provide
their recommendations for humanitarian assistance to OFDA. An OFDA
information officer arrived in Belgrade on September 6 to assist and
support the USAID Mission and the OFDA team with humanitarian reporting.
In August, the Serbs announced a plan to create humanitarian distribution
centers in eleven towns. The plan seeks to encourage IDPs to return to
eleven designated towns and would provide returnees with shelter,
electricity, and potable water. BHR's Assistant Administrator Parmer
visited Serbia, including Kosovo, from August 29 to September 6. During his
visit, he authorized the transfer of HDRs to the Yugoslav Red Cross to
distribute at each of these sites (2,000 per site).
BHR/OFDA has provided nearly $5 million in funding for humanitarian
assistance to the IDPs in Kosovo since April 1998. This funding is being
given to Children's Aid Direct (CAD), Catholic Relief Services (CRS),
Doctors of the World (DOW), Handicap International (HI), and Mercy Corps
International (MCI) to provide wheat flour, milk powder, stoves, fuel wood,
blankets, hygiene packs, food packs, and baby packs. This is in addition
to $5 million in regular emergency assistance programming for winterization,
fuel distribution, agricultural assistance, and emergency health care to
extremely vulnerable people in Kosovo. These projects are being
implemented by the NGOs listed above.
Since FY 1993, BHR/OFDA has provided over $41 million in assistance to
Kosovo through NGO activities in health, food, winterization assistance,
and the provision of essential medical and fuel supplies.
Other USG Funding: The State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees,
and Migration (State/PRM), USAID/BHR's Office of Food for Peace (BHR/FFP),
and the Department of Defense's Office of Peacekeeping and Humanitarian
Affairs (DOD/PK/HA) have also contributed to the humanitarian response in
Kosovo in FY 1998. State/PRM has provided $3.1 million to UNHCR, $1.4
million to the ICRC, $250,000 to UNICEF, and given $262,354 to NGOs in
Albania working with Kosovar refugees. USAID/FFP has provided $833,900 to
support 90,000 beneficiaries in Kosovo through a World Food Program (WFP)
flash appeal and $1,340,500 to CRS for 52,000 beneficiaries in a Kosovo
institutional feeding program. DOD/PK/HA has also donated eight surplus
vehicles to WFP at a value of $159,000, including transport.
UNHCR has announced their intention to establish regional distribution hubs
for emergency relief commodities in Pristina and the towns of Pec,
Mitrovica, and Prizren. NGOs can receive stockpiled relief supplies at the
hubs and outreach to beneficiaries through their own distribution systems.
The U.N.'s KDOM will be present in the four hub distribution locations.
The USG supports UNHCR's efforts and a portion of State/PRM's funding will
be provided to UNHCR to support the hub distribution program.
USG Assistance in FY 1998 (to date)
BHR/OFDA Assistance $9,973,054
BHR/FFP Assistance $2,174,400
State/PRM Assistance $5,012,354
DOD/PK/HA Assistance $159,000
Total USG Assistance FY 1998 (to date) $17,318,808
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