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Will the refugees go home?

While the Kosovo conflict may be nearly over, the mammoth effort needed to get the refugees back to what may remain of their homes is only just beginning.

The United Nations' refugee agency, the UNHCR, has urged caution over how quickly the hundreds of thousands of displaced people can return to normal life.

Daniel Endres, head of the UNHCR emergency team in Albania, said international bodies would be trying to stop refugees flooding back until security was guaranteed.

"I don't think we can move a large number of refugees into Kosovo very quickly because of the great level of destruction," said Mr Endres.

"The first condition is security and dignity for the returnees, and that needs to be insured by a credible force."

Click here to see a map of refugee movements

The entire effort to return refugees hinges on the state of the province after the Serb withdrawal - and the shape of any political settlement which follows.

But Kris Janowski, spokesman for the UNHCR at its Geneva headquarters, said that earlier refugee flows in the Kosovo crisis did give some cause for optimism.

"The refugees are not going to go back if the henchmen are still around," said Mr Janowski.

"But people do usually go back quite quickly if they can.

"When a ceasefire was brokered in October, the people who had been displaced began to go back quite quickly - even to completely destroyed villages."

Most homes damaged

According to latest UNHCR estimates, up to half of the homes in Kosovo may have been destroyed and up to 70% damaged since 24 March.

Intelligence also suggests that the Yugoslav army has mined large areas including the southwest where the Kosovo Liberation Army had been attempting to punch a supply route into the province.

Wells are said to be polluted, crops have failed and Nato has bombed much of the province's electricity supply.

The reconstruction of Kosovo will cost a lot more than the $70m needed to keep refugees in camps for another three months.

Priorities

The current proposed repatriation operation is divided into four phases:

• Prepartion for return
• Resumption of humanitarian operations in Kosovo
• Promoting repatriation
• Sustainable reintegration

Kris Janowski said: "We don't have a handle on how bad the destruction is in Kosovo. We will go in as quickly as the security will allow and look at the situation."

The fact-finding teams will assess critical basics for sustaining life - water supplies and sanitation - and will make a detailed inventory of the damage to homes in the province.

But the teams will also take in emergency supplies to the thousands of refugees internally displaced within Kosovo, hiding in the mountains and forests.

According to the peace agreement, small numbers of the Yugoslav military will work with peacekeeping forces to remove mines and demilitarise the region.

Peacekeeping troops will also be assigned to positions geared towards protecting the returning refugees.

Once phase one is complete, humanitarian organisations will lay groundwork for the major return and reintegration of refugees to follow.

Infrastructure repairs will initially focus on homes and communications such as roads and bridges.

Echoes of the past

While the UNHCR believes large numbers will be prepared to return quickly if Belgrade keeps to its word, the region's other major movement of refugees is yet to be resolved.

Current estimates suggest that up to one million people are still displaced following the war in Bosnia following the collapse of Yugoslavia - officially described as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

"The big difference between Bosnia and Kosovo is that after the Dayton peace agreement in 1995 the return of refugees was essentially hindered by the fact that people were returning to areas where they were in the ethnic minority," said Mr Janowski.

"The position in Kosovo is different as the returning Kosovo Albanian refugees are the majority.

"The problem will be in ensuring that the Serb communities do not believe that they are now in a hostile environment."

Communities returning to Bosnia after the Dayton peace agreement have found it difficult to settle following a war which saw former neighbours become ethnically-divided enemies.

But agencies working in the Balkans fear that the effects of the destruction will take a far greater psychological toll on the Kosovo refugees.

"In a traumatised population people don't think rationally," said Sue Prosser, a psychotherapist with Medicins sans Frontieres.

"They think that their homes will still be there, may be needing a little bit of decorating.

"They won't think that their home may have been booby-trapped, that there is no electricity, no infrastructure, or maybe no home at all."

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Relevant Stories

Milosevic in Nato's sights (04 Jun 99 | Europe)
What the Serbs have been told (04 Jun 99 | Monitoring)
Refugees still wary of Serbia (03 Jun 99 | UK)
Full text of the peace document (04 Jun 99 | Europe)

Internet Links

UNHCR
UNHCR: Proposals for returning refugees
Medicins sans Frontieres

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