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| KOSOVO REPORT | |
 April 1, 1999 
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Following a report on the refugee crisis, Media correspondent Terence Smith talks with ITN's Mark Austin about the worsening humanitarian crisis.
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JIM LEHRER: Our second report is from ITN's Mark Austin on the border between Kosovo and Montenegro. Terence Smith talked with him this afternoon. TERENCE SMITH: Mark, what is the situation there today? Is the flow of refugees continuing?
TERENCE SMITH: And do these refugees report that they are still being forced out at gun point? |
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The condition of the three soldiers. |
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MARK AUSTIN: Yes. The stories that we're hearing are very harrowing stories. And they're all the same stories so you have in many ways to believe them. I mean there's no way of verifying the stories. We can't get into Kosovo. We can't get in with our cameras so all we can do is listen to these accounts. And the accounts are that masked gunmen, paramilitaries, came to their homes in the middle of the night and told them that they had to leave Kosovo, they had to leave what they call the Serb nation, and they have to go to NATO they say, "Go and join NATO. That's what you want to do."
TERENCE SMITH: Are they -- are the refugees aware of the wider war around them? Are they aware of the NATO air strikes on their behalf? MARK AUSTIN: Well, this is an interesting point. Of course they're aware that a war has broken out. They are being bombed. Kosovo is being hit by NATO bombers. And the Serbs, of course, are saying that this is the reason why they're fleeing. Now, this is denied by the refugees themselves. They say they are not fleeing because of the bombing, they welcome the bombing. The reason they are fleeing, they say, is they're being forced out, they're being persecuted and they're being threatened and that they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary in Montenegro, in neighboring Albania, where most of the refugees seem now to be going and in Macedonia. But, as I say, they're coming across this mountain, they're in a terrible state. They have very few belongings. It's very cold. They don't have food, they don't have water, and once they get here, Montenegro is a small country, it's not a particularly rich country and they're having great difficulty in finding aid for the refugees who come across.
MARK AUSTIN: I think in terms of a sort of exodus, a forced exodus from a country, I haven't seen anything like it in Europe clearly. I covered the Rwanda situation, where up to a million people fled from Rwanda and the scenes there were horrifying. These people were arriving without any food and water, and the aid couldn't reach them.
TERENCE SMITH: Well, it's obviously a very wrenching and dramatic situation, Mark, and we appreciate this chance to get a first-hand account from you. Thank you very much. MARK AUSTIN: Okay. Thank you. |
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MARK
AUSTIN: Yes, the flow of refugees is continuing for the fifth day now.
We've been up on the border, the mountain border, it's snowing, it's
very cold. And while we were up there, several thousand refugees crossed
the border from Kosovo in cars, in tractors, in trailers and some on
foot. And this is, as I say, has been going on for five days now. And
it doesn't seem to be stopping. There's slightly less today. That's
largely because the weather in the mountains is bad. It's difficult
to cross the mountains. But the very fact that they are crossing the
mountains, trying to cross them, means -- shows how desperate that they
are to get to the safety or relative safety of Montenegro, which although
it's inside Yugoslavia, is a part of Yugoslavia that is pro western
and a part of Yugoslavia where they feel safe for the time being before
they then move on to Albania.
And
they force them out. And of course hundreds start leaving, and then
others see those leaving, so thousands start leaving. There have been
killings, we've been told, in the streets, executions. Men have been
rounded up and taken to sports stadiums. So these are the stories we're
hearing. Houses are being burned. I spoke to a teacher today, a primary
school teacher from Kosovo who taught English, and he said that a gunman
came to his door in the middle of the night, he told him that he and
his family had to leave. He gave them 30 minutes to leave. They stole
all their money. They looted their flat. And of course they left. And
they started a long walk towards the border. Now, this is one story
out of hundreds, thousands of stories pretty much exactly the same.
As I say, they're uncorroborated but the very fact that they're -- all
say pretty much the same thing does lend credibility to the stories.
TERENCE
SMITH: Mark, let me ask you on a personal note, you've covered the Bosnia
crisis, you've been in the gulf during the Gulf War. How does this compare
to what you've seen in those circumstances? What is it like to cover
it? 
And
as we know, hundreds were dying a day of cholera and other illnesses,
and I think in the end 30,000 of them died. Now, here we're not seeing
illness and sickness break out yet. The aid is able to get in to Albania.
The European Union, the United Nations will be able to get aid into
Albania. So they hope that they can avoid that kind of humanitarian
catastrophe. But certainly, in terms of people being forced out of their
villages, out of their towns, I haven't seen anything like that in Europe,
and I don't think anybody has since the Second World War.
