April 14, 1999
Relief workers head to Albania
from world's other troubled spots
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--They've been gathering intelligence for months, shipping and storing supplies, doing reconnaissance on roads and bridges in the area. Now they're deploying the "troops."
___The troops in question are unarmed and extremely careful not to take sides. They're the men and women who work for the two dozen relief groups--some with religious ties, others secular--who've gone into action to get food, shelter and medical care to the refugees fleeing Kosovo. Around the world, these humanitarian workers find themselves responding more and more to man-made disastersas well as natural catastrophes.
A REFUGEE CAMP is raised in the surburbs of Tirana to welcome the ethnic Albanians that have poured into Albania since airstrikes against Yugoslavia started. (REUTERS)
___Groups like Mercy Corps International, the International Rescue Committee and the International Medical Corps face an extraordinary challenge right now--possibly the greatest mass movement of people in Europe since the aftermath of World War II.
___Many of the relief workers now aiding Kosovar Albanians recently have been in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Honduras.
___Mercy Corps had the largest international relief presence in Kosovo before being forced to pull out late in March. There, since 1993, Mercy Corps has been supplying the very low-tech weapons necessary to combat hunger and cold. For example, Mercy Corps staffers based in Pristina distributed 22,000 cooking and heating stoves to people whose houses had been damaged or destroyed.
___Another group that had to clear out of Kosovo, the International Rescue Committee, was formed in 1933 by Albert Einstein to rescue people in danger as the Nazis came to power in Germany. For Bob Turner, director of the committee's Kosovo office, the past few weeks have felt like a timeless wartime Europe. His staff of 20 was evacuated late in March to escape violence by Serbian troops and then the NATO bombing.
___The International Rescue Committee had been supplying clean water, food, shelter and medical help to people forced from their homes.
___Kevin Noone, vice president of the Los Angeles-based International Medical Corps, was just back from overseeing mobile clinics in Macedonia, providing primary care, focusing on refugee children and pregnant women. He stressed that he and his medical colleagues saw this humanitarian disaster coming.
___"We were not taken by surprise," he said. "What we had not anticipated was these numbers."
___Yet, even that should not be surprising, he said.
___"This is what's happening globally, day in day out," he said. "If it's not Europe, it's Africa. If it's not Africa, it's Asia. It's continuous."
___With undisguised bitterness Noone added: "It's something to go into the new millennium with. Just like the last time--1900. Violence, ethnic hatred. Except that we have improved our technology. Now we have CNN, cell phones and better weapons."Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!