The United States has confirmed that it intends to house some twenty-thousand refugees from the conflict in Kosovo at its naval base of Guantanamo in Cuba.

A White House spokesman said the operation would start by the end of this week, and would take more than a month to complete.

Guantanamo, in the south-east of Cuba, was ceded to the United States in 1903.

In recent years, it has been used to accommodate thousands of Haitians fleeing the military dictatorship in their country, and Cubans who have tried to leave the island on rafts, headed for the United States.