Displaced Serbs From Kosovo Face Humanitarian Crisis
http://www.centraleurope.com/balkanstoday/news.php3?id=229533

RADINAC, Dec 13, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) There has been no heating at the Radinac collective center for two weeks and hepatitis has broken out, but it is the only home some 800 Kosovo Serbs, among them 70 babies, will have this winter.

"We have had no heating for 15 days," said Zvonko Jezdic, who has fled his hometown Vucitrn in central Kosovo to this center in southeast Serbia.

"Just fifteen days ahead of the new millennium, we are like Indians in the time of the Wild West: a metal can filled with wood burning outside to warm us up," he complained.

The Serbs have lived here since fleeing Kosovo in 1999. They are among more than 200,000 who left their homes fearing violence by the ethnic Albanian majority after Belgrade forces withdrew from the province and NATO-led peacekeepers from KFOR were deployed.

The center is made up of about 50 barracks -- it was once a temporary camp for workers building the nearby steel-producing complex.

"These barracks were not built for people to live in during winter, Jezdic explained, showing the interior of his frozen room.

Outside, the children are playing in the mud. A hepatitis epidemic was declared in the camp weeks ago.

"Breakfast and dinner are almost non-existent, while for lunch, one can choose between cabbage or bean soup," Jezdic said during his meeting with the European commissioner for humanitarian affairs and development Poul Nielson, who visited the center with numerous other officials.

"We have 70 babies in the center who have not seen milk in six months, our 160 pupils are divided in two classes, while the elderly people desperately need medicines," Jezdic said, pleading for more humanitarian aid.

Branislav Tasic, from the southern Kosovo town Urosevac, demanded that Nielson do his best to help Serbs return to the province, which is currently administered by the United Nations.

"We all want to return to Kosovo, there is no future for us here," he said.

Nielson promised European Union help in bringing Kosovo Serbs and Albanians together, adding that he "understands the frustration among the refugees."

"We want, above all, to avoid here the situation of the Palestinians in the Middle East, who live as refugees for generations," Nielson said.

He insisted that the "number of refugees and displaced people (in Serbia) represents a sort of humanitarian crisis... neglecting these people could again destabilize the region."

"But before they return (to Kosovo) we have to help them with continued humanitarian assistance," Nielson said.

Apart from the Kosovo Serbs, more than 500,000 refugees from Bosnia and Croatia still live in Serbia, most of them in trying conditions.

The EU has promised to send 200 million euros (176 million dollars) in urgent humanitarian aid.

But, according to unofficial estimates, Serbia needs at least an additional 575 million euros (500 million dollars) by next May to meet basic humanitarian and social needs. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)