Kosovo: every day sees more fighting and displacement

UNHCR welcomes the pledge by the Kosovo Albanians to sign the proposed peace agreement. We hope the Yugoslav side will follow suit since every day sees more fighting and displacement on the ground with clashes spreading to new, previously not affected areas. We estimate that at least 9,000 people have been driven from their homes since the Kosovo talks resumed in Paris on Monday, 15 March.

The level of fighting across Kosovo and the intensity of displacement have reached the highest level yet since the October 27 cease-fire.

Fighting returned to the Klina area this week for the first time since last summer, sending thousands of people anew into flight. UNHCR staff saw several smouldering houses in the deserted village of Svrhe, after the Yugoslav army pounded the area with artillery shells, allegedly responding to a KLA attack.

New fighting raged in the Vucitrn, Srbica and Mitrovica regions where some villages have been shelled for many days now.