[Kcc-News] Kosovars launch hunger strike / Kosovars on Hunger Strike for Ethnic Albanians Jailed in Serbia (May 1, 2000) (fwd)

[Mentor Cana]

http://www.pa.press.net/news/story/sm_2946.html

Kosovars launch hunger strike

A group of 46 Kosovar Albanians in Pristina have started a hunger strike
in protest at the continued detention of their countrymen in Serb
prisons.
     Meanwhile, as reported by Ananova, a group of 36 Serb prisoners in
Kosovo have entered the third week of their own hunger strike in protest
at their continued detention on suspicion of war crimes.
     The Kosovar strikers are taking the action over the 1,300 prisoners
still in Serbian prisons who were moved from Kosovo to Belgrade before
Nato forces arrived in the province last June.
     They are also pushing for news about the estimated 5,000 people
missing from last year's conflict.
     "The strike will continue until the international community takes
concrete measures towards the liberation of the prisoners," organiser
Agrin Xhemajli says.
     Thousands of people demonstrated last week in Pristina for the
release of the prisoners, blocking roads for several days and sleeping
out in the roads, reports Central Europe Online.

Last updated: 14:06 Monday 1st May 2000.
Copyright © 2000 Ananova Ltd
_______________________________________________________________________
http://centraleurope.com/news.php3?id=156015

Kosovars on Hunger Strike for Ethnic Albanians Jailed in Serbia

PRISTINA, May 1, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) A group of 46 Kosovar
Albanians in Pristina have started a hunger strike as part of a campaign
to free colleagues jailed in Serbian prisons.
     Their numbers have grown from the original group of 15 who started
the protest at noon on Friday.
     "We have even had to turn some people away because they were too
old or too weak," said Agrin Xhemajli, one of the hunger-strikers and
the organizer of the action.
     "The strike will continue until the international community takes
concrete measures towards the liberation of the prisoners," he added.
     The hunger-strikers, mainly young, are camped out on an esplanade
in the center of Pristina, with mattresses and blankets.
     Drinking only water and smoking the occasional cigarette, they
receive visits from doctors every two hours.
     Yugoslav troops transferred nearly 2,000 prisoners from Kosovo to
Belgrade just before NATO forces arrived in the province last June after
their bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
     Of them, about 1,300 are still in Serbian prisons, according to the
International Red Cross.
     The hunger-strikers are also pushing for news of the 5,000 or so
missing people, many of whom are feared killed during last year's
conflict in Kosovo.
     The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is
still digging up victims of the violence.
     Xhemajli called on the UN to speed up their work and if any people
were still missing, to press Belgrade for news of them.
     Thousands of people demonstrated last week in Pristina for the
release of the prisoners in Serbia, blocking roads for several days by
sleeping out in the roads.
     On Saturday, ethnic Albanians in the western Kosovar town of
Djakovica appealed to a visiting delegation of ambassadors from the UN
Security Council visiting Kosovo to take up the issue.

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)