Helping the Kosovars While They Await Their Return: A Situation Report From Albania

By JoMarie Fecci

As the crisis moved into its third month, the agreement seemingly reached between NATO and Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosovich promised relief for the exodus of Kosovar refugees across the Kosovo-Albanian border. However, the international community’s quick response to the tragedy already was a source of pride.

The tragic circumstances of the Kosovars’ flight into Albania are, by now, well-documented. The dire situation of early April, when almost no emergency supplies and few international humanitarian relief workers were on hand to assist the exhausted refugees, had been alleviated by early May by an outpouring of aid from all quarters.

“It took a few days for UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies to step up their activities and deal with tens of thousands of people streaming through borders,” Mrs. Sadako Ogata, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told the Security Council before pointing out that the refugees now are being relatively well assisted for the short term.

Growing Tensions

Now, however, the international community must take stock of the lessons learned to facilitate what will remain a resettlement problems for refugees whose homes, and even whole villages, were destroyed.

Despite the warm hospitality demonstrated by most Albanians, there have been growing tensions fueled in part by differences in sophistication between relatively well-educated, well-traveled Kosovars and more provincial Albanians. Prior to the conflict, many Kosovars had a higher standard of living than many Albanians, and some poor Albanians feel they, too, should get a share of the relief aid. A minority have even sought to exploit the refugees, foreign media crews, and international relief agencies.

The International Crisis Group reports that truckloads of humanitarian aid disappeared into the hands of a local mafia. Refugees also allege corruption by some local Albanians in diverting humanitarian relief supplies. One group of refugees complained that aid parcels supposed to contain 75 kilos of goods had only 50 kilos left by the time the Albanian Mafia had taken its “cut.”

While Albania’s deputy minister of local government, Liri Jani, publicly denied press reports about theft of foreign aid, police officials in Tirana affirmed that in at least one case they had recovered four trucks containing aid that had been diverted from refugee camps to private homes in Durres and Tirana.

Too Great Expectations

In many ways, experienced relief workers found Albania an easier environment in which to work than many others they have experienced. Although the Kosovo crisis seemed overwhelming, the problems of dealing with the more than 650,000 Kosovars who had fled their homes are dwarfed by the problems of some refugees elsewhere.

The climate is not as extreme as in Africa, hygiene is easier to maintain, there is electricity and drinkable water. Aid workers are also full of praise for the cooperation of the Albanian government, and the willingness of the Albanian people to take in the refugees.

Still, working with the refugees in Albania’s border camps had its own idiosyncracies. They have high “expectations” of the international community’s promised assistance. Media reports of billion-dollar humanitarian aid commitments to the region further raised those expectations.

Those crossing the border were often hungry and thirsty after a long period of flight, and some men who had been held in Serb prisons were suffering from acute hunger or near starvation. Once they received initial meals and rehydration, however, some refugees rejected emergency food rations, searching instead for their “regular” food items.

Aid organizations quickly changed their feeding programs, but soon faced a shortage of bread. Even with Albanian bakeries working at full capacity, bulky and perishable bread needed to be imported until baking equipment was delivered.

Periodic shortages of medicines meant that patients sometimes had to be turned away, or told they must wait for deliveries. Dr. Shehu Gëzim, on duty at a camp medical tent, recalls the most difficult early weeks of the crisis when he and another physician were the only medical care providers for a camp full of refugees.

The distribution pipeline for relief materials was just being established, and shortages were common. “It has been hard for us,” he said. “There are lots of children who need treatment with certain injections, and we just don’t have the medicine.” Frustrated healthworkers must sometimes postpone care to needy patients who don’t want to hear explanations about slow aid shipments.

Difficulties Inside the Camps and Out

New arrivals in the Kukes camps, often still in shock over missing family members or the loss of their homes, initially ignored the crowded and difficult conditions, frequently expressing thanks to the international community for providing any aid at all. However, the boredom and crowding of the camp environment soon had an effect. Complaints ranging from muddy floors and leaking tents, to health problems brought on by dampness and unsanitary conditions, were commonplace.

Those Kosovars living outside the refugee camp network were in some ways better off, yet, ironically, they were more likely to slip through the cracks of the humanitarian aid system.

With most Albanians very sympathetic to the Kosovars’ plight, 60 to 80 percent of all the refugees in Albania were accommodated in private homes. A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) survey found that close to three-quarters of the local population had, at some time during the first month, hosted a refugee family. According to MSF, these refugees quickly run out of money for food and shelter, and have no access to basic medical care.

The case of one Kosovar family who fled from Djakova in early April is illustrative. After making their way to Tirana, where a cousin helped them find an apartment, they received absolutely no humanitarian assistance for 20 days, during which time they depleted remaining family funds and existed on handouts from sympathetic neighbors. Their plight is not unusual.

The humanitarian community had made a concerted effort to reach out to these households after late April with food distributions and other programs, But as long as they remained without documents identifying them as refugees, these families were highly vulnerable.

Pressure to Move South

The security situation in the Kukes border area also was precarious. The refugee camps grew up concentrated in an area within range of Yugoslav army guns. When the military conflict escalated, the potential for catastrophe loomed.

This danger was recognized by all those working in the area. But many of the refugees didn’t want to move. Most refugees had no wish to leave one camp for another further south. While a lack of adequate transport to take people from Kukes also hampered the effort to move the Kosovars, their reluctance to go was the greatest barrier. Now they are equally reluctant to stay while NATO forces make sure that it is safe for them to return to their damaged or destroyed homes.

Some families had members in the KLA. Women and children who had been instructed by a male family member to stay in a certain place simply refused to move. Shkurte Halili, who fled the Drenica area after seeing about 150 villagers killed at Izbica, explained, “We haven’t our men, and without them we don’t know where to go.”

Despite the efforts of UNHCR and the Albanian government to move the refugees, the number in Kukes remained at around 100,000 at the time the agreement was reached.

NATO, The KLA, and the Outlook for Winter

While NATO prepared for their return to Kosovo, most Kosovars interviewed were thankful for the intervention on their behalf.

Most refugees were aware that the new airstrip in Kukes, built by the United Arab Emirates for humanitarian relief flights, is, at 3,000 feet, capable of receiving U.S. Air Force C-17s, which can carry a complete range of U.S. Army weapon systems up to and including the M1A1 Abrams tank.

“Thank God for NATO. It could have been a lot worse,” said Vasel Pjeter Lulgjuraj, a KLA fighter. “I’ve seen so much help from all over the world, and we are thankful. But we needed arms.

Lulgjuraj, from New York, was part of the rising tide of volunteers from Albanian immigrant communities around the world who provided a committed source of manpower to the KLA. But without any significant outside assistance until just before the agreement was reached, the force remained poorly armed.

The KLA soldiers are well-intentioned, if not well-trained, and are committed to helping their people and freeing their homeland. Support for the force has grown stronger among the refugee population, though there remains a segment that seems to prefer the idea of a NATO protectorate to that of a KLA-run state. “We just hope for the day when we can go home to a free Kosovo,” said Osman Osmoni, a Kosovar at the Italian camp.

In the meantime, as summer begins, the international humanitarian community is already starting to plan for winter. The Kosovars all hope to be home by then. But in areas where the homes have to be completely rebuilt, provisions will have to be made for the bitter Balkan winter that sets in as early as October. Even though the Kosovars are preparing to go home, international relief workers are prepared to stay as long as they are need. Shefki Mati, a KLA fighter says, simply, “Our people are suffering and they need help from the international community—either arm us or go with ground troops. But if NATO fails here, it will lose all credibility.”

JoMarie Fecci is a free-lance photojournalist based in the New York metropolitan area.