[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} NEWS: 3,000 Ethnic Albanians Have Fled To Kosovo (Reuters, Nov 28, 2000)

[Wolfgang Plarre]

http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=224947&section=Kosovo

3,000 Ethnic Albanians Have Fled To Kosovo

GENEVA, Nov 28, 2000 -- (Reuters) About 3,000 ethnic Albanians have
crossed into Kosovo from southern Serbia in the past four days, fearing
a possible military offensive by Serbian forces, the United Nations
refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.
    The Geneva-based agency said that more people could flee depending
on the outcome of Belgrade's deadline to KFOR for stamping out
cross-border raids by guerrillas. It was extended from 1800 GMT on
Monday.
    The displaced people, who are staying with relatives in the the
Gnjilane area southeast of Pristina in the troubled province, told UNHCR
that they saw tanks in their villages amid a "military build-up", but no
fighting, spokesman Kris Janowski told a news briefing.
    A recent upsurge in violence in Serbia's Presevo Valley, a mostly
ethnic Albanian area just outside Kosovo, has alarmed Western powers.
    "We have now about 3,000 people who have left the Presevo Valley in
southern Serbia for Kosovo since last Friday. Yesterday (Monday), about
200 vehicles with ethnic Albanians from the Presevo and Bujanovac area
crossed into Kosovo," Janowski said.
    "Most of these people actually crossed before the Serbs announced
the extension of their deadline which basically said that they would
take military action unless Kosovo rebels clear out of the area," he
added.
    Local Albanian leaders have urged the people to leave ahead of a
possible offensive by Serbian forces, the spokesman said.
    Janowski, asked whether UNHCR expected a greater exodus, replied:
"Some kind of a deadline is still there and a sense of tension is still
there, so we have to reckon with more people crossing, basically."
    Kosovo has been a de facto international protectorate since Yugoslav
forces withdrew in June 1999 following NATO's bombing campaign to halt
Belgrade's repression of its ethnic Albanian majority.
    UNHCR has sent a convoy carrying mattresses and stoves for the
western Serbian town of Bujanovac where some 200-250 people, both Serbs
and ethnic Albanians have converged from surrounding villages, according
to the spokesman in Geneva.

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited.


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