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UNICEF helps Kosovar children

"What is happening in Kosovo is beyond words," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said. "The people of Kosovo are now subject to the worst violations of body and soul that can be described. All this is happening without humanitarian workers to help alleviate the suffering."

Humanitarian and human rights workers have been forced to leave Kosovo in the wake of the armed conflict. At present the humanitarian effort is focused on the plight of a flood of refugees to countries adjacent to Kosovo, many of them children. This is the largest outpouring of refugees in Europe since World War Two.

"The situation of the tens of thousands of internally displaced people within Kosovo is every bit as horrific as that of the refugees," Ms. Bellamy said.

According to the latest reports, over 100,000 people have fled into Albania, with 20,000 new arrivals streaming into the country daily. An estimated 40,000 refugees have entered Macedonia, 20,000 have fled into Montenegro and 5,000 into Bosnia and Herzegovina. UNICEF field staff report that most are exhausted but in reasonable physical condition. The vast majority are children and women. The United Nations is projecting a refugee count of 350,000 over the coming weeks.

UNICEF is cooperating with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian agencies in caring for thousands of children and their families in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. In Albania, especially in the northern district of Kukes, UNICEF is distributing hygiene kits for infants, essential drugs, clothes and blankets.

From its warehouse in Copenhagen, UNICEF will be airlifting the following supplies into Tirana, Albania tomorrow (1 April): emergency health kits to meet the needs of 40,000 persons over three months; 2,000 children's blankets; large quantities of oral rehydration salts to treat diarrhoea; water purification tablets; water testing kits; and syringes. Other similar flights are scheduled.

"We are concentrating in the areas of health, education and water," Ms. Bellamy said. "This means providing vaccines, high protein foods, essential medications and pediatric kits. It means trauma counseling for children who have been subjected to unspeakable disruption and carnage. It means helping create schools or adapt other facilities for educational use. It means interim use of UNICEF's school-in-a-box programme. We are also committed to trying to make potable water available to both the host populations and the refugees."

Approximately half of the refugees who have crossed over into Albania are heading to the south and centre of the country. They are staying in schools and sports centres. Some are in tents in the capital, Tirana and others are living with host families.

Ms. Bellamy warned that Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia, among the poorest regions in Europe, have a limited capacity to host the refugees. The effort requires a huge amount of humanitarian assistance from the world at large, Ms. Bellamy said.

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