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UNMIK-KFOR-UNHCR-UNMIK Police Press Briefing, 26 March 2001 UNMIK Spokesman Michael Keats UNMIK Spokesman Michael Keats Good morning. There will be a media briefing immediately after this conference - by the Chairman of the Joint Working Group on the Legal Framework, Johan van Lamoen and other members of the Group. They include: Fatmir Sejdiu, Arsim Bajrami, Muhamet Kelmendi, Abedin Ferovic and Blerim Raka. The SRSG will be going to Skopje this week - the date has still to be announced - for discussions with the government of FYROM. In the continuing campaign to clean up the environment around Kosovo, a municipal landfill has been constructed in Kosovo Polje and will be inaugurated tomorrow. The landfill, built with donations from Italian Trade Unions and Association of Industrialists and implemented by the Italian NGO, ISI, can handle the management of solid waste of up to 50,000 people for the next five years. KFOR Spokesman Richard Heffer Good morning everyone. KFOR continues to deploy significant forces along the Kosovo-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia border. The job of these troops is to detect, disrupt, and to deter any cross-border movement by Albanian extremists operating in FYROM and also to disrupt and to deter their supplies. We also conduct aggressive coordinated search operations in the border area. It is important to stress that these operations are not along a narrow border strip but are carried out in significant depth, when in Kosovo, with check points and further patrols. We support these operations by the use of highly sophisticated surveillance, on the ground and in the air. Elsewhere in Kosovo, KFOR troops continue their task to work for the normalization of life for all the people of Kosovo. UNMIK Police Spokesman Dmitry Kaportsev Trafficking of women As you know, the previous SRSG, Dr. Kouchner, signed into law a new and stronger prohibition on Trafficking in Humans and Prostitution. Two recent incidents illustrate the ongoing nature of our efforts to enforce that prohibition. In the first case, two Moldavian women approached UNMIK Police in Prizren on February 18, 2001 and reported that they were victims of Trafficking. According to their statements, they were transported illegally into Kosovo on July 31, 2000 and sold to the owner of the FITORIJA coffee-bar. The victims' passports were taken from them and they were forced to work as prostitutes until their escape in February. The Trafficking and Prostitution Unit (TPIU) began an investigation and the victims were returned to Moldova. Search and arrest warrants were executed on March 21, 2001 and two suspects were taken into custody. A third suspect was arrested the following day and all three were confined to the Prizren Detention Center. The second incident occurred on March 23, 2001. UNMIK Border Police at the Vrbnica crossing called for assistance from the TPIU after stopping a suspicious male and female who were travelling to Albania. Investigators subsequently arrested the male for Trafficking after the female's statements indicated she had been used as a prostitute at the APACHI bar in Ferizaj, and she was being transported to Albania for the same purpose. EOD found KFOR troops from Finland located an explosive device in a culvert under a road close to a school in a mainly ethnic-Ashkali area near Lipljan on March 24, 2001. KFOR EOD responded and secured the device so it could be confiscated for evidence. The UNMIK Police Forensics Unit will process the device for evidence in order to identify the person or persons who made it. The discovery of this device by KFOR troops may have prevented another
atrocity such as the February 16th bomb attack on the "Nis
Express". The people of Kosovo must understand that violence
by terrorists and criminals is stealing their future and cannot be
tolerated. Anyone with information on this or other crimes should
advise UNMIK Police or KFOR. The information will be held in the
strictest confidence. UNMIK Police Missing Persons Unit Spokesman Guido Van Rillaer Good morning ladies and gentlemen. As you just heard I am the head of the Missing Persons Unit of UNMIK Police at the Main HQ. We have been in existence for more than one year and I thought it was a good opportunity to present a little bit about of our work. We have a lot of questions like, "what is the UNMIK Police doing with the missing persons issue?" We are doing a lot but you don't see much it, of course, for the moment. We would like to give the public and all of our partners a little bit of awareness and overview of what we have done so far. We made a little overview of the one year of the Missing Persons Unit, in which you can find what we are, who we are, how we work, what is our mandate, what do we need from the people, what do we need from our partners and what can we give back to you. Also some figures, some statistical problems of which we were confronted with and recommendations and projects that we think could be useful in the coming months. What is this not? This is not an complete overview of all the missing persons at the moment in Kosovo. The figures that you will find in the booklet are the figures of files that we handled. That means for the moment, more accurate figures can probably be found at ICRC-The Red Cross and we are working very close together. What you have to know before you go through the text is that this is only one year of the missing persons unit and the book was closed on the 31st of December. We did not have that many results by that time because as you know, if you put something together, a new unit, you first have to install yourself and you have to have your equipment and you cannot start cooking before your kitchen is ready. So I can say that, today, our kitchen is ready and that we can start cooking. To give you one little example of it, in the book you will find that we had 2393 records open at the end of the year. Well, today we already have 3399. The same goes for the closed files. At the end of the year we had 253 closed files. And now, 2 1/2 months later, we have 376 closed files. So you see that the speed is going and the results are coming now. I am going to keep it very short because most of the information you
can find in the booklets. There are booklets available in
English, Albanian and Serbian with my colleague over there. I invite
you to take them and to go through it. If there are some questions,
I will be glad to answer your questions now. Good Morning. While on Saturday a steady stream of refugees continued to arrive through both Morina and the mountains, German KFOR reported late Sunday afternoon that large groups of persons were noticed fleeing over the mountains in the direction of Kosovo. A total of 44 people were transferred during Sunday afternoon to hotel Prizren. The majority of arrivals were from Vejce village in FYROM which had reportedly been shelled during Sunday. Refugees told that the village, totalling 1200 people, had emptied and that the population could be expected to arrive overnight. So far as of 9.00 hrs am this morning, Field Office Prizren, who during the night shuttled between the various villages on the Kosovo side, has identified over 700 new arrivals that were hosted during the night in the villages Dornje and Gornje Ljubjina by the resident population. These refugees are being transferred by UNHCR in buses to Prizren town. German KFOR reported this morning that several hundred more people are on their way to Kosovo. An additional emergency team has been sent to reinforce the Prizren staff who have been working non stop over the past week (day and night). Arrivals in Gnilane AOR During the weekend 84 people were reported entering through Muchibaba border crossing from southern Serbia, the latest arrivals totalling 450 through this crossing. Most of the new arrivals come from Skopje, Tetovo and Kumanovo, heading towards Pristina, Kosovo Polje (Fushkosovo, Gnilane, Ferizaj, Kacanik, Kamenica, Viti/Vitina, Hani I Elezit and Stimlje. The relatively small number of arrivals on 24 March was probably caused by reported fighting in the GSZ in the area. FYROM More than 30,000 Macedonians are now estimated to have left their homes since fighting started earlier this month. Most of them - some 16,100, according to the latest Red Cross figures - have gone to other parts of FYR of Macedonia. The remainder have travelled to Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Turkey. Those leaving are both Macedonian and ethnic Albanian. The vast majority of those who left their homes did so as a precautionary measure - usually citing concerns over the safety of their children - and are staying with friends and relatives. There have been very few requests for humanitarian assistance. In FYR of Macedonia, UNHCR is providing assistance to the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy to help prepare accommodation centres in case they are needed. Emergency stocks are in place should they be required. UNHCR's team in southern Serbia reported that more than 45 buses carrying Macedonian citizens of all ethnic backgrounds had crossed the border to travel onwards to Croatia and Bosnia. Some of these new arrivals remained with family and friends inside Serbia and others travelled on into Kosovo. Estimate of number of people who have left their homes in FYROM in
March 2001 TOTAL 30,221 while some 3,500 Macedonians have crossed into Albania, it is estimated that between 60 - 70% have remained, with some 30% moving to Kosovo and up to 10% to countries in Western Europe Apart from the figures in FYROM itself, which are the number of people registered by the Macedonian Red Cross, these figures are rough estimates only. Most people interviewed by UNHCR/government authorities have said that they are leaving their homes for security reasons and that they plan to stay with relatives and friends until the situation calms down. The vast majority have not lodged asylum claims or sought assistance (except in some areas in Kosovo). Those leaving are both Macedonian and ethnic Albanian. Arrivals in Kosovo
overview
Questions Q: I have two questions, one is for KFOR and the other is for UNHCR. You have allowed the Yugoslav forces, the VJN, and the Serb security forces to enter the Grand Safety Zone. When do you think you will allow the Yugoslav forces to enter Kosovo, inside Kosovo, according to resolution 1244? And the question for Astrid. How do you consider all the people coming into Kosovo or to Albania, as refuges, IDP's or what else? RH: I will take your first question if I may. Just to say that the FRY forces return to zones, Charlie, Western, Alpha, the conditional return, was achieved with no incidents reported by our liaison teams monitoring those returns. It is obviously premature to start to think about the discussions to allow FRY forces back into Kosovo proper. AV: The people that entered Kosovo over the weekend are refugees
fleeing a conflict situation. |