EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE IS SOUGHT FOR DISPLACED POPULATIONS IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, ALBANIA

4 December 1998

Press Release
IHA/675

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE IS SOUGHT FOR DISPLACED POPULATIONS IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, ALBANIA

19981204 United Nations Agencies Appeal for $360 Million; Aim Is To Provide Humanitarian Relief for Vulnerable Groups

NEW YORK, 4 December (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) -- United Nations agencies today issued an appeal for $359.4 million to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania. Included among those covered by the appeal are an estimated 200,000 people who were displaced within Kosovo, and some 140,000 who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries as a result of the recent conflict.

Three years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, parts of the region still play host to around 1.8 million people uprooted as a result of conflict. The events in Kosovo, brought about by unresolved political problems and by governments in the region pursuing nationalistic policies, compounded an already deteriorating economic situation, as the countries grappled with post-war recovery.

While significant numbers of people went back to their places of origin, these numbers were lower than expected in some countries of the region. After six years without a home, some people will lose hope and could make decisions which will merely serve to reinforce wartime gains, fracture communities and dampen nation-building efforts.

This appeal is mainly aimed at supporting efforts to achieve durable solutions through ongoing humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation activities for displaced persons, refugees and host communities.

The United Nations and international and bilateral organizations, in close collaboration with the governments in the region, have identified key humanitarian objectives and have developed a strategy to achieve them. These are presented in a common humanitarian action plan intended to provide protection and emergency assistance for Kosovo's internally displaced persons and other affected people in the region, especially women and children.

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The plan also intends to foster sustainable solutions by creating conditions through peace-building efforts for people to freely return to their homes or a place of their choice. Rehabilitation efforts, including employment generation and capacity-building for administration and institutions, are key to longer-term goals of reconciliation and reintegration, while avoiding unnecessary dependency on such assistance.

Copies of the appeal document may be requested from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)/Complex Emergency Response Branch, by email on: erlinda.umali@dha.unicc.org. The document is also available on OCHA's website: http://www.reliefweb.int/.

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