The Communicable Disease Surveillance System in the Kosovar refugee camps in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia April-August 1999 (original) (raw)
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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) developed and implemented a three-month project entitled Priority Medical Screening of Kosovar Refugees in Macedonia, within the Humanitarian Evacuation Program (HEP) for Kosovar refugees from FR Yugoslavia, which was adopted in May 1999. The project was based on an agreement with the office of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and comprised the entry of registration data of refugees with medical condition (Priority Medical Database), and classification (Priority Medical Screening) and medical evacuation of refugees (Priority Medical Evacuation) in Macedonia. To realize the Priority Medical Screening project plan, IOM developed and set up a Medical Database linked to IOM/UNHCR HEP database, recruited and trained a four-member data entry team, worked out and set up a referral system for medical cases from the refugee camps, and established and staffed medical contact office for refugees in Skopje and Tetovo. Furthermore, it organized and staffed a mobile medical screening team, developed and implemented the system and criteria for the classification of referred medical cases, continuously registered and classified the incoming medical reports, contacted regularly the national delegates and referred to them the medically prioritized cases asking for acceptance and evacuation, and co-operated and continuously exchanged the information with UNHCR Medical Co-ordination and HEP team. Within the timeframe of the project, 1,032 medical cases were successfully evacuated for medical treatment to 25 host countries throughout the world. IOM found that those refugees suffering from health problems, who at the time of the termination of the program were still in Macedonia and had not been assisted by the project, were not likely to have been priority one cases, whose health problems could be solved only in a third country. The majority of these vulnerable people needed social rather than medical care and assistance -a challenge that international aid agencies needed to address in Macedonia and will need to address elsewhere.
Refugee crisis in Macedonia during the Kosovo conflict in 1999
Croatian medical journal, 2002
The Kosovo refugee crisis in the Macedonia in 1999 was unique in terms of its unprecedented magnitude against its short duration (sharp increase and sudden decrease in refugee population), its high visibility in the world media, and attention received by donors. In the late March 1999, after the launch of the NATO air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, refugees from Kosovo began to enter Macedonia. Within 9 weeks, the country received 344,500 refugees. Aiming to provide an emergency humanitarian relief, United Nations, and international and national organizations together with the host country, donors, and other concerned parties coordinated and provided immediate assistance to meet the needs of refugees, including shelter in collective centers (camps) and accommodation in host families, nutrition, health care, and water/sanitation. The morbidity and mortality rates remained low due to the effective action undertaken by a great number of humanitarian organizations,...
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 2000
In complex human emergency (CHE)-aid situations, the international community responds to provide assistance to reduce morbidity and mortality related to environmental and civil disruptions. The political and social situation in Kosovo, in combination with the military activity from 23 March to 09 June, 1999, created a crisis associated with mass movement of the population of Kosovo into neighbouring provinces and nations. This forced migration of people seeking protection increased demands for -water, food, shelter, and health care in the refugee areas. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that 771,900 ethnic Albanians, and 30,700 Serbians, Croatians, and Montenegrins had been displaced from Kosovo during this time period, and that 439,500 of these people had arrived in Albania. Given the limited health-care resources in Albania to respond to the increasing demands for health care, a field epidemiological study was conducted by the International Organiza...
Social impacts of the Kosovar refugee crisis in Albania
2000
This social assessment (SA) examines the effects on Albania of the 1999 Kosovar refugee crisis, when nearly half a million Kosovars fled across the border to escape Serbian ethnic cleansing. Albania's remarkable response to this short but intense human emergency not only was critical to helping the refugees, but helped to transform civil society in Albania, and to foster longer-term links between the Albanians and the Kosovars. The study finds that activities on behalf of refugees carried out by local governments, NGOs, religious organizations, community groups, women's groups, youth groups, and families helped to generate the kinds of social cohesion and local capacity in Albania that are considered preconditions for successful development-preconditions that, before the crisis, donors had considered largely absent. The efforts of Albanians at all levels to house, feed, educate, and provide counseling and other services to the refugees generated trust between civil society and local governments, enhanced the credibility of the NGO sector, and gave Albanians a sense of empowerment that has carried over to post-crisis civic actions. These include a number of grassroots efforts to build roads across borders; pursue cross-border trade, education, and cultural initiatives; and in other ways maintain and expand the new relationship with the Kosovars. In addition, the study finds that the crisis created some new opportunities for the participation of different social groups in community-driven development (CDD) initiatives across borders. Methodology The quantitative portion of the social assessment consisted of a survey of 500 Kosovar families living with Albanian families, with respondents equally divided between male and female. The qualitative portion consisted of interviews with hosts, NGO representatives, public administrators, and Albanian and Kosovar leaders; and focus groups with Kosovar women and girls. Findings Refugee profile. The profile of the refugees that emerged from the survey was of very young (more than a third less than 14 years old) and predominantly rural population. The families taken into Albanian homes averaged 8.7 people. Most respondents said they had been treated well but that Kosovo had a higher standard of living and better economic resources, and that they would not invest in Albania. Self-help efforts of the refugees. Due in large part to Albanian support, the Kosovars were able to organize themselves into leadership structures that focused on the distribution of supplies and the dissemination of information about missing family members. Most leadership structures were in the camps; refugees living in private homes were more isolated. Some Kosovar NGOs also became active in Albania, but received little or no support from the international community. The Albanian response. The central government sought assistance from NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, and foreign nations, and set up an Emergency Management Group (EMG) to coordinate this aid. EMG's work was impressive in supplying the refugees with food and water and transporting them to camps. However, it was not significantly relevant to the 70 percent of the refugees in private accommodation; nor was it accessible to NGOs. In the absence of any plan for care of most of the refugee population, local authorities assumed primary
Health care in wartime conditions. Health under fire. The WHO in the former Yugoslavia
The European Journal of Public Health, 1996
In July 1992, In former Yugoslavia the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a humanitarian assistance programme. The programme was aimed at maintaining public health in the war-affected areas with 4 million refugees and displaced persons, over 200,000 dead, at least twice as many wounded, over 60,000 patients in need of rehabilitation and at least 1 million persons with deep psychological scars. The programme had 4 objectives: public health Interventions (Induding health and nutrition monitoring), physical and psychosodal rehabilitation, distribution of medical supplies and health care reform. A key feature was a systematic assessment of the needs of the affected population by means of health and nutrition monitoring which helped to target the assistance. For some areas the WHO'S medical supplies were the only source of much needed drugs. With the health authorities WHO initiated a health care reform, to enable the qualitatively reasonably good but top-heavy and expensive health care systems Inherited from the socialist era to recuperate and survive. The WHO programme has helped avert major epidemics, prevented scurvy and rickets and helped people to survive the cold of the winter.
International Journal of Advanced Scientific Research and Management, 2020
The crisis of refugees has hit its highest and reached critical volumes in the contemporary world. With different governments, communities and the United Nations High Commission for refugees (UNHCR) body trying to keep side by side of offering the necessary humanitarian support to the refugees who are fleeing war and persecution, the United Nations High Commission for refugees is mandated to lead, respond and coordinate worldwide action for the international protection and resolution of refugees problems and its fundamental responsibility to safeguard the legal rights and the well-being of refugees across the world Srinivas (2009). The United Nations High Commission for refugees program is determined and focused to enable refugees to achieve self-reliance as well as have their contribution to the communities and promote combined efforts between humanitarian action and longer-term partnership-based cooperation and development. The study was aimed at assessment to access the level of influence of UNHCR healthcare intervention on the socioeconomic status of refugees in Gihembe camp. A descriptive survey design was employing Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect primary data. 87.2% of the respondents reported communicable diseases as being the commonest diseases among the refugees in the camp. UNHCR health care intervention program reduced on the infant & maternal mortality yet 25.6%.