UNHCR says Belgrade treating Serbs from Kosovo as second class citizens.
JULY 9 -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday that some 100,000 Serbs who have fled from Kosovo to Serbia proper are facing grim conditions as Belgrade denies them pensions, education and schooling.

Deprived of any official status they have become second class citizens, said a UNHCR spokesman. According to local press reports in Serbia, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia sent an instruction to all primary and secondary school directors in the territory of Serbia to reject enrolment of pupils from Kosovo. Other bureaucratic pressures are reportedly being applied on the internally displaced to return to Kosovo, spokesman Kris Janowski said.

Last week, the Serbian Health Ministry said if health workers from Kosovo did not report to their old jobs they would loose them as well as back pay. Internally displaced Kosovars in Serbia cannot claim monthly fuel rations outside Kosovo nor can they receive pensions unless they first de-register with the police in their old place of residence -- an impossible task since the withdrawal of police forces from Kosovo.

Meanwhile, minority Serbs and Roma or Gypsies remaining in Kosovo are also facing an increasingly critical situation, said Mr. Janowski.  In the town of Prizren, some 20 Serb houses have been burned in the last 48 hours and 130 Serbs are still in the Orthodox seminary at Bogoslavija, under the protection of German troops with KFOR, the international military force.

The situation is very tense in Djakovica where 360 Roma are gathered in the mined graveyard near the centre of town, according to the UN refugee agency. Houses have been torched and some Roma taken away by the Kosovo Liberation Army for interrogation. The Roma group is asking to be evacuated to Montenegro.

The Serb community in Orahovac is also asking to be taken out of the area, Mr. Janowski said. Most Serbs have moved from surrounding villages to the upper part of the town where they are living in a ghetto-like area under Dutch KFOR protection.

Newly-appointed chief of UN mission in Kosovo heads for Europe to begin assignment.
JULY 9 -- The newly-appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, completed a round of briefings at United Nations Headquarters on Friday in preparation for assuming his post as the head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Mr. Kouchner is expected to arrive in Pristina by the middle of next week after attending a high-level meeting in Brussels on Tuesday on reconstruction in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, the acting Special Representative in Kosovo, Sergio Vieira de Mello, met with the UN Police Commissioner and a representative of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to work out details on the recruitment of local police for training. OSCE, which will oversee institution building as part of the UN mission in Kosovo, will be responsible for setting up of a Police Academy.

Mr. Vieira de Mello also spoke with Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and encouraged him to return to Kosovo to attend a scheduled meeting on Tuesday of the Kosovo Transitional Council, the highest level consultative body representing a broad spectrum of opinion in the province. 

After intensive negotiations by UNMIK and KFOR, a group of 80 Albanians and 60 Serbs will resume work on Monday at Pristina's municipal building. The return to work is a result of an agreement that may prove to be a model for efforts to reconstitute Kosovo's public institutions.

The agreement allows for 400 workers from various ethnic groups to work alongside each other. Its ultimate goal is full integration of all former employees in the municipal building, including those employed as of 24 March and those previously employed in 1990.

UN survey of Kosovo villages finds widespread destruction to housing.
JULY 8 -- A United Nations survey of the destruction inside Kosovo has found staggering levels of damage to housing, widespread food shortages and contamination of water resources, and a dire lack of health facilities.

According to preliminary results released on Thursday, 64 per cent of homes in the 141 villages inspected are severely damaged or completely destroyed. Another 20 percent sustained moderate damage. About 40 percent of water sources are contaminated, many by household garbage and human remains.

The survey, which was led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also revealed that the availability of food has been dramatically reduced over the past three months as shops were looted or destroyed and farm production ground to a halt. Up to 88 percent of villages lacked functioning health facilities.

The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, said that what was needed in some of the gutted towns was immediate reconstruction not just emergency humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, has found that between 40 to 50 percent of schools have been damaged. Two other UN agencies, the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Programme, reported a severe wheat deficit, an 80 per cent loss in corn production and big losses of livestock.

Head of UN mission in Kosovo meets with Yugoslav opposition leaders to discuss Serb exodus.
JULY 8 -- The acting head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Sergio Vieira de Mello, met with a group of Yugoslav opposition leaders on Thursday to explain his efforts to stop the Serb exodus and seek the release of kidnapped Serbs.

The group which calls itself "The Alliance for Change", includes nine opposition leaders from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, among them Zoran Djindjic from the Democratic Party and Vuk Obradovic.

During the meeting with Mr. Vieira de Mello, the opposition leaders said they were the first to speak up against President Slobodan Milosevic and that the Serbian people did not know about the atrocities in Kosovo.  They said they wanted to have good relations with ethnic Albanians.

Mr. Vieira de Mello pointed out the dire situation of 3,000 Serbs under siege in the Kosovo town of Orahovac where more than 100 men had been reportedly killed in alleged massacres during the war. Mr. Vieira de Mello said that unless suspected criminals among these people were dealt with under the rule of law it would be difficult to ease the plight of the other Serbs.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 80 percent of Orahavac's pre-war ethnic Albanian population of 25,000 have returned, with the 3,000 remaining Serbs gathered in the same neighbourhood in the city centre.

UNHCR also said that despite a generally improved security climate in Kosovo, minority groups were living in increasingly perilous conditions and ethnic tensions were high in several areas.

The UN refugee agency and KFOR, the international military force, are making every effort to enable minority Serbs and Roma or gypsies to stay in their homes. However, in the wake of the growing number of incidents where minority Kosovars have found themselves in life- threatening situations, UNHCR is faced with the difficult question of when and whether to help evacuate them.

Minority Serbs and Romas in Kosovo request 24-hour protection from ethnic violence -- UNHCR.
JULY 7 -- Besieged minority communities in Kosovo are requesting round-the- clock protection from ethnic violence or evacuation from the province, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Wednesday.

According to the UN agency, small groups of Serb and Roma civilians want KFOR, the international military force, to provide 24-hour protection. Otherwise they want to be evacuated to Montenegro and Serbia proper. In one village, 54 Serbs said returning Kosovars had threatened to kill them and without a KFOR presence they would leave. In another village, six Serbs and 11 Roma told UNHCR they wanted to go to Montenegro and asked for a KFOR escort.

UNHCR has received similar requests for protection from Serb minorities in Dajkovica and Orahovac. On Tuesday, agency staff visited the Strpce area which has become a sanctuary for Kosovo Serbs. Around 11,000 people are believed to have sought sanctuary there and UNHCR described a "climate of fear and uncertainty about the future." In Darcane, KFOR troops rescued several Serb children when their house was set on fire by unknown people after their parents left on an errand.

Meanwhile, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the acting head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), visited the western town of Pec on Wednesday as part of his continuing effort to explain the Mission's purpose to local community leaders and seek their support.

Mr. Vieira de Mello, who is the Secretary-General's acting Special Representative, met with the head of the main Pec monastery, which is a refuge for Serbs fleeing violence. He also spoke with a top Albanian leader. "We know we have to rebuild the administration of Kosovo and with your cooperation I know we will succeed," Mr. Vieira de Mello said while in the devastated city.

During the war, the entire city centre of Pec was gutted by fire, but signs of economic life are emerging, said a UN spokesman. People have begun repairing and rebuilding what they can and household supplies and food are being sold on the street.

In other developments, a team from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) is designing strategies so local authorities and communities can participate in the massive reconstruction effort in Kosovo. The UNEP/Habitat Balkans Task Force team will create mechanisms for land title registration, resolving tenancy and property disputes and strengthening municipal administration and leadership..

Acting head of UN Kosovo mission says KFOR can hold suspects for longer than 48 hours.
JULY 6 -- The acting head of the UN mission in Kosovo has spelled out the right of KFOR -- the international military forces in the province -- to apprehend and detain longer than 48 hours, individuals suspected of criminal offenses.

According to a statement issued on Monday by the Secretary-General's acting Special Representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, KFOR can detain individuals until pre-trial hearings and a legal determination on whether and how long a prisoner should remain in custody.

Mr. Vieira de Mello, who is acting head of the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), said in his statement that KFOR had the mandate to ensure public safety and order, and civil law and order until UNMIK could take full responsibility for those tasks. KFOR had the right to apprehend and hold people suspected of such offenses as murder, rape, kidnapping, arson or war crimes.

As part of the UN's process of re-establishing an independent, impartial and multi-ethnic judicial system in Kosovo, a team of judges and prosecutors, appointed by Mr. Vieira de Mello last week, have begun pre-trial hearings in the towns of Pec, Prizren and Gniljane.

Meanwhile, in Geneva on Tuesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with his newly-appointed Special Representative for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, to discuss the envoy's responsibilities. Mr. Kouchner later told reporters that he would go to the province early next week to take over what he described as a "very heavy and a very difficult task" from Mr. Vieira de Mello.

In other developments, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Sadaka Ogata visited a school in Kosovo Polje outside the capital Pristina, where some 5,000 members of the minority Roma population are seeking refuge. The Roma people have been accused of collaborating with Serbs and have been targets of violence.

During her two-day visit, Ms. Ogata met with KFOR Commander General Michael Jackson. She also spoke with a German KFOR general in Prizren, who stressed the need for the early return of teachers, doctors and other professionals as well as the deployment of international police contingents.

According to UNHCR, more than 600,000 of the estimated 800,000 who fled Kosovo have now returned.