Home | UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF

Kosovo refugees face trauma and stress

"Beyond the initial, overwhelming physical needs faced by these children is the devastating, lasting psychological shock of what they've experienced," said Ms. Bellamy. "Our challenge is not only to keep these children alive, but to create environments that are child-friendly and that restore some minimal sense of normalcy to their lives."

About half of the 517,000 Kosovar refugees who have poured out of the province, mainly into Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, in the last three weeks are children under the age of 15. UNICEF is providing clean water, blankets, essential drugs and baby care supplies. Emergency medical supplies have been delivered to treat respiratory illnesses and diarrhoea and an immunisation campaign against measles, polio and other diseases has been launched. In addition, the agency has created mobile health teams equipped with essential drugs and medical supplies.

But Ms. Bellamy said some of the most important, long-term work is in programmes to help children cope with emotional stress through play and educational activities. In Kukes, northern Albania, UNICEF is supporting a network of local trauma counselors to create positive stimulation for young children through the organisation of play groups. In Macedonia, tent schools are being created to serve refugee children and local teachers and counselors are being trained to cope with the special psycho-social needs of refugee children.

"Bringing education and creative play back into children's lives provides them with a much-needed routine at a time when their lives have been so shattered," Ms. Bellamy said. "Our hope is to engage them, to help them cope with their distress by getting them to draw, play soccer, read books and to do, as much as possible, what normal children do."

Ms. Bellamy stressed that while the international community is rightly focussed on meeting the refugees' most immediate needs, the sheer scope of the human exodus from Kosovo will require sustained and long-term support both to the refugees and to the communities outside Kosovo that have absorbed them.

In addition, Ms. Bellamy said, the substantial needs of children who have remained inside Kosovo, and in Serbia and Montenegro, will need to be addressed once conditions permit the return of international relief agencies to the area.

UNICEF has appealed for $13.8 million dollars to meet the most urgent needs of children and women in the Kosovo emergency over the next three months.

UNICEF Home| UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF