High Commissioner travels to the Balkans

On Thursday, the High Commissioner flies to Zagreb, Croatia - the first leg of her 13-day long tour of the Balkans. The High Commissioner will examine progress on refugee and displacement issues in the region where last year alone UNHCR spent nearly a third of its annual budget. She will meet with a string of high-ranking national and international officials across south eastern Europe. In Kosovo, she will meet with the head of the UN administration there, Dr. Bernard Kouchner. She is also scheduled to visit the tense city of Mitrovica and meet with representatives of both the Serb and the ethnic Albanian communities. This is the trip's tentative schedule:

• On Saturday March 18, she will leave Zagreb to travel to Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
• On Sunday, she goes to Sarajevo.
• On Tuesday, she will travel to Belgrade, FR of Yugoslavia.
• On Thursday, she will go to Podgorica, Montenegro.
• On Friday, she goes to Pristina, Kosovo.
• On Monday, she goes to Skopje, FYR of Macedonia.
• On Tuesday, she goes to Tirana, Albania.
• On Wednesday afternoon, she leaves Tirana for Geneva.