Albania Briefing

Albania - The Refugee risis

The influx of over 400,000 Kosovar refugees into Albania, ombined with in reasing border lashes with Yugoslav for es, has pla ed a huge burden on the Albanian authorities to move refugees away from vulnerable amps lose to the Yugoslav border. The situation in the north-eastern town of Kukes, whi h hosts the majority of new arrivals from Kosovo, is worsening by the day as a never-ending flow of people enters the town. 16,000 refugees arrived in Kukes over the weekend 8-9 May 1999. The 100,000 refugees in Kukes are very exposed as the town, whi h is now being des ribed as a "war zone", is just 15 kilometres from the Yugoslav border - well within rea h of Serb artillery and mortar fire. The Tirana authorities are determined to redu e the number of refugees in the Kukes distri t by transporting them to amps further south in the ountry. The eva uation, however, is being done in a very haoti and haphazard manner. La k of adequate planning means that there are not enough vehi les to transport refugees and many, having already suffered traumati separation from family members during their flight from Kosovo, now fa e the prospe t of being separated again as the authorities try to move them south as qui kly as possible.

Apart from on erns for the safety of refugees urrently being housed lose to the border the Albanian authorities have other motives for wanting to move the refugees southwards. Above all, Tirana does not want large numbers of Kosovo Albanians near the border to be a provo ation to the Serbs, who laim the amps are providing a support base for the re ruiting and training of KLA guerrillas as justifi ation for their atta ks on Albanian territory. In addition, the authorities want to lear the amps to make room for the possible arrival of thousands of other refugees if and when they arrive.

With the imminent arrival of an estimated 60-70,000 refugees from over rowded amps in Ma edonia, new amps are to be built deep inside Albania away from the vunerable northern border. Food, vehi les and onstru tion supplies at existing re eption entres for refugees, who may eventually number half a million, are urgently needed. In less than two months the population of Albania has in reased by nearly 17 per ent. There is on ern therefore about what so io-e onomi impa t the long-term presen e of so many Kosovars will have on Albanian so iety. The sustainabilty fa tor needs to be addressed - What is the optimum number of Kosovo refugees that Albania an absorb without ausing further destabilisation of the ountry?

The number of refugees leaving Kukes for other distri ts has fallen greatly sin e the last week of April 1999. There are two prin ipal reasons for this: a la k of adequate transport to take people to different regions; and the a ute relu tan e of the refugees to move away from the Kukes amps to other amps further away from the Yugoslav border. Persuading the refugees to leave Kukes is proving diffi ult for both the UNH R and the Albanian authorities.

This insisten e to remain in Kukes is influen ed by several fa tors. First, many of those remaining are families who still have relatives missing in the aftermath of their flight from Kosovo and are remaining in Kukes in the hope of being reunited. Se ondly, there is a la k of information about where the refugees will be taken and what living onditions are like in other amps. Thirdly, there is a degree of s epti ism about the type of re eption the Kosovars will re eive from lo al Albanians should they move to southern distri ts. Indeed, many refugees show no relu tan e to go to Tirana or Durres but are wary about being asked to go elsewhere.

The on ern of some Kosovars about settling in southern areas of Albania stems from the stories that abound on erning the violent uprising of 1997, whi h emanated from the south of Albania. Many Kosovars believe the 1997 uprising was dire ted against the government of Sali Berisha, in part, be ause his administration was identified as northern Gheg nationalist, as opposed to southern Tosk So ialist. Sin e Kosovars are themselves Ghegs, many believe they will not be wel ome in southern Tosk areas of Albania.[1]

In Kukes it is the men who appear the most relu tant to move south, not only be ause they are un ertain of their re eption elsewhere, but also be ause they want to return to Kosovo as soon as possible and believe that their disbursement will delay their return[2]. The women on the other hand show a greater willingness to relo ate away from the over rowded and wholly unsanitary Kukes amps mainly be ause they are on erned about the health of their hildren. Also be ause the women do all the domesti hores su h as washing, leaning, ooking and hild are, they are onsequently urious to know what onditions are like elsewhere in the hope that they may hear of somewhere better than Kukes.

One aid offi ial, who wished to remain anonymous, des ribed his impatien e with some of the Kosovar men in Kukes saying that they spend their days " ussing and dis ussing", whilst their womenfolk try desperately to maintain a semblan e of domesti routine amidst appalling onditions. During a visit to Kukes by an I G analyst, an Albanian journalist from Tirana be ame so angry at the Kosovar men for refusing to dis uss onditions in amps in southern Albania, that he shouted at the men to go ba k and fight in Kosovo and let the women and hildren move away from the filth, damp and squalor of Kukes.

To ompound the problem of Kosovar refugees, the re ent in rease in the number and frequen y of ross border lashes has aused many lo al Albanian families living near the Yugoslav border to leave their homes. Serb artillery has re ently widened the onfli t by shelling Albanian villages near Bajram urri, killing three people and for ing hundreds to flee. Those who remain gather for safety at night in abandoned hillside tunnels and mine shafts[3]. Around 6,000 inhabitants of border villages in the Kukes and Tropoja distri ts have been eva uated from their homes sin e the end of April, with only the men staying behind to prote t livesto k and property.

For the first time, on 22 April, Serb for es used radioa tive shells in fighting with KLA troops lose to the border with Albania. For almost a year similar in idents have taken pla e. Now, however, it appears that ivilians are being targeted by the firing of artillery shells arrying radioa tive mines into Albanian territory. The likelihood of a further use of su h weapons is anti ipated to in rease now that Serb for es are finding it diffi ult to return to their previous positions along the Kosovo-Albanian border after severe fighting with the KLA. The Serb atta ks are aimed at destroying KLA training amps in the area, as well as ausing general instability in the border distri ts.

Another reason to move the refugees from the northern border distri ts is to prote t them and the aid agen ies from the violent lo al gangs that prey on any strangers, Albanian or foreign, that are deemed not to have adequate armed prote tion. The arrival of the Kosovars has provided ri h pi kings for lo al Albanian riminal elements. In the northern border area, lo al gangsters rob the refugees with impunity, whilst illegal immigrant traffi kers in the oastal town of Vlore are doubling the number of trips a ross the Adriati with boats rammed full of Kosovars hoping to join relatives in Western Europe. Some refugees omplain of being vi timised by lo al Albanian gangsters, who have stolen their ars and tra tors and sold them ba k at exorbitant pri es. This is espe ially so in the Tropoja distri t where international border monitors, foreign journalists and Kosovar refugees have been robbed at gunpoint of money, equipment and vehi les. At the end of April, a British Broad asting orporation (BB ) rew was stopped by two masked men who fired over their ar and then stole their ameras and money. Even NATO offi ers dispat hed to survey the area for possible troop deployment have had to be es orted by lorryloads of Albanian soldiers[4].

Lo al riminals have been qui k to exploit the arrival not only of refugees and foreign media rews, but also of the dozens of international relief agen ies that have des ended on the bleak northern towns of Kukes and the notoriously lawless Bajram urri. Dozens of tru kloads of international aid are disappearing daily en route between the port of Durres and Tirana into the hands of the lo al mafia and then onto the bla k market. In mid-April $300,000 worth of antibioti s disappeared from the port of Durres. The onstant movement of refugees into the entral and southern distri ts of Albania, together with the la k of proper registration of refugees s attered throughout the ountry, makes it relatively easy to divert aid supplies. Aid representatives estimate that only four out of every ten relief onsignments were a tually being distributed to the refugees.

The Albanian authorities have set up an emergen y ommittee to oordinate the arrival and distribution of aid, but the weakness and sometimes omplete absen e of any effe tive Albanian administration in many areas, ombined with problems of division of responsibility between various international relief agen ies, have severely limited the ommittee's effe tiveness. In many northern distri ts the lo al authorities and the lo al mafia are one and the same. The high level of rime in Bajram urri has lead some relief organisations to pull out of the area. A spe ial refugee poli e for e of 1,600 has been established, in part, to maintain publi order in the amps but also to prote t the refugees and to a ompany the relief lorries. Due to the enormity of the refugee risis, however, this for e is wholly inadequate to prote t all but a few distri ts and needs to be heavily reinfor ed.

Regardless of whether the NATO bombing of Serbia ontinues or pea e negotiations are resumed, it is unlikely that any Kosovo refugees will be able to return to Kosovo before winter. A number of issues have therefore to be addressed:

• The refugees have to be eva uated entirely from northern border regions, keeping one amp open in Kukes solely as a re eption entre for new arrivals, and for those refugees who have Albanian relatives from the Kukes area.

• Vehi les and onstru tion supplies at re eption entres for future refugees, who may eventually number half a million, are urgently needed.

• Food supplies to Albanians who are sheltering refugees must be organised and urgently delivered. A ording to the hairman of Kukes Distri t oun il, Shefqet Bruka, 50 per ent of the food supplies to refugees is provided by the Albanian authorities and the 30 different humanitarian organisations operating in the Kukes amps - the rest has been met by lo al families.[5] Lo al families, who have taken in hundreds of refugees, are finding it almost impossible to ontinue feeding their Kosovar "guests" as well as their own families. This is a diffi ult time of year. Unlike in September or O tober, there is little food to harvest and many peasants are just planting rops. Lo al Albanians did not expe t to have to feed so many people for su h a long time and most families have now exhausted their winter food supplies.

• Aid agen ies must liaise with the Albanian government to ensure relief supplies are effe tively distributed. There appears little willingness to oordinate with the government, some members of whi h believe many NGOs have a real fear of transparen ies be ause it will expose their organisation's ineffi ien ies.[6] Kukes Distri t oun il hairman, Shefqet Bruka, praised the work of the UNH R but riti ised other international organisations for not oordinating their a tivities between either themselves or the Tirana authorities thereby hampering relief work.[7]

• Finally, a major issue that must be addressed is the allo ation of suitable sites for the onstru tion of sizeable refugee amps. The Albanian government keeps offering sites for refugee amps whi h are state owned and invariably turn out to be flooded or otherwise totally unsuitable. Any land that is half de ent is privately owned. What is urgently needed is an emergen y law whi h allows the government to expropriate land on a temporary basis. The refugee risis is a national emergen y for Albania, it should be the government's legal duty to provide land for the settlement of refugees. The government should set a flat ompensation rate for different types of va ant land and if the owner refuses to a ept the government's ompensation figure, the land should be automati ally requisitioned by the government.

UNH R = 875,000 refugees have left Kosovo sin e Mar h 1998, 720,000 of whom have left Kosovo sin e the start of the NATO bombing on 24 Mar h this year.

The UN refugee agen y UNH R estimates that around 677,000 ethni Albanian refugees have rowded into ountries neighbouring Kosovo (in luding the Yugoslav republi of Montenegro). With more than 100,000 Kosovars relo ated outside the Balkan region, the total number of refugees that have left Kosovo sin e the start of the onfli t in Mar h 1998 ex eeds 800,000, a ording to UNH R estimates. The latest figures (as of 7 May) for refugees within the Balkan region are:

ALBANIA: 423,000

MA EDONIA: 241,000

MONTENEGRO: 63,000

SERBIA: Offi ial figures from Belgrade indi ate that 50,000 Kosovar refugees inside Serbia proper, but the figure is un onfirmed by the UNH R.

BOSNIA-HER EGOVINA: 15,000 refugees from Kosovo. The UNH R has also ounted 20,000 Muslims from Sandjak and 10,500 Serbian refugees in Bosnia-Herzegovina.