The head of the United Nations World Food Programme has said that she is very concerned for many displaced Kosovars who are scrounging for food inside their country. Speaking during a visit to Dublin, Ms. Catherine Bertini said that the Kosovars are hiding in the hills and therefore cannot be reached by outside agencies. The UN's World Food programme is responsible for co-ordinating all food aid for an estimated 800,000 Kosovar refugees in the Balkans.
Through ports like Durrus in Albania, WFP has been importing flour to help local bakeries feed the fleeing Kosovars. But inside Kosovo and beyond the range of the WFP's air-lifts of food, the programme estimates that at least half a million more Kosovars are in hiding from the Serb security forces, and trying desperately to feed themselves.
The first evidence of how they may be faring came at the week-end when the first two waves of men of military age were released and then expelled by the Serbs into Albania. Ms. Bertini met Junior Foreign Affairs Minister, Liz O'Donnell, this morning.
