SECRETARY-GENERAL ALARMED AT DETERIORATING HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

Press Release
SG/SM/7131

SECRETARY-GENERAL ALARMED AT DETERIORATING HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

The following statement was issued today by the Office of the Spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

The Secretary-General is alarmed at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (excluding Kosovo), particularly in view of the coming winter. Data collected by the United Nations indicates that the vulnerable population of Serbia and Montenegro is growing. In addition to half a million refugees and internally displaced from previous Balkan conflicts, an estimated 200,000 people have been displaced from Kosovo to other parts of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The sharp contraction of the economy in 1999, coupled with inflation, is compounding severe pension and salary problems and dramatically reducing the population's resources. There is a real threat of rising food prices and dwindling drug supply, problems which will be exacerbated by plummeting household income, partly due to a dramatic increase in unemployment. Of greater concern is that winter electricity supplies are projected to be 30 to 50 percent below requirements, which threatens to deprive the urban poor -- the displaced, the elderly, children, the unemployed, the institutionalized -- of heating, running water, health-care and the capacity to freeze and cook food.

In May of this year the Secretary-General dispatched an Inter- Agency Needs Assessment Mission led by the Emergency Relief Coordinator. In addition to drawing attention to the atrocities in Kosovo, the mission also advised of the need for emergency humanitarian assistance for vulnerable groups in Serbia and Montenegro, particularly as winter sets in. Since July the United Nations has been gathering and disseminating data on priority needs form Belgrade, and in light of the increasingly disturbing situation, the Secretary-General has asked the Emergency Relief Coordinator to lead efforts to mobilize resources to meet these needs. The Secretary-General strongly urges donors to give prompt and generous support to this strictly humanitarian operation.

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