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 Fear and Violence Main Reasons for
Leaving Kosovo
7 February 2000
By the end of January, displaced
persons from Kosovo had submitted to the Humanitarian Law Center 1,327 complaints against
the violation of their property rights. The HLC started receiving these complaints on 4
October last year, in the expectation that an ombuds office would be established in Kosovo
with a mandate to consider complaints lodged by individuals against the violation of
property rights.
Twenty percent of the complainants said they were made to
leave their apartments or houses under threat of death or were forcibly evicted by
unidentified ethnic Albanians, who were most frequently armed and wearing Kosovo
Liberation Army uniforms. This group of displaced said they were subjected to physical and
psychological abuse even before being thrown out of their homes. Many called the Kosovo
Force or the UN Mission in Kosovo police for help but neither were able to provide them
with adequate protection.
Eighty percent of the displaced said they left their homes
and property and fled to Serbia or Montenegro out of fear of reprisals, being murdered or
abducted, lack of confidence in KFOR, and a feeling of personal insecurity after the
withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police force from Kosovo. |
