wfn.org | United Methodists assist Kosovo refugees

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

August 12, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
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By United Methodist News Service	

The United Methodist bishop of Central and Southern Europe is organizing
assistance for refugees in Kosovo.

Bishop Heinrich Bolleter, based in Zurich, Switzerland, received an
initial $10,000 grant in August from the United Methodist Committee on
Relief (UMCOR) to purchase food and other supplies.

Kosovo is a province of the republic of Serbia, which, along with
Montenegro, makes up Yugoslavia. For the past six months, Kosovo rebels
have battled Yugoslav government troops for independence for the
province, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

More than 10 percent of that population has been displaced from their
homes, according to the Aug. 12 New York Times. Another 80,000 new
refugees have been added to the 167,000 estimated by the United Nations
before the current offensive by Yugoslav troops.

Among the refugees is Mehmet Sopaj, an asylum seeker who came to
Switzerland from Bosnia and later became a United Methodist lay
preacher. When Sopaj returned to the Kosovo capital of Pristina, his job
as a history professor at the university there was gone. "He could no
longer teach because the Serbs did not allow teaching in the Albanian
language at the university," Bolleter explained during an Aug. 11
interview with United Methodist News Service.

Instead, Sopaj formed United Methodist congregations in Pristina,
Sallagrazhde and Suhareka. But in May, the harassment began. "Very
recently, they had to almost go underground...because the Kosovo
liberation forces wanted to misuse the congregations for the recruitment
of young people for the war," the bishop said.

The response by Sopaj and the church members was they sought a political
and diplomatic solution to the war, not violence. "They (Kosovo forces)
were threatening them and at the end forcing them to leave the village,"
Bolleter added.

Getting assistance to the refugees in the woods and mountains is
difficult, particularly because the church is not willing to compromise
with either the Kosovo forces or the Serbian police. According to
Bolleter, the Red Cross of the Federation of the Republic of Yugoslavia
is not reliable.

He noted that there is a United Methodist congregation and aid center in
Albania in the mountains at the border with Macedonia, where two 12-ton
trucks would be available to transport supplies, "But the messages we
get from there tell that it is momentarily too dangerous to cross the
border from Albania to the Kosovo region," he added in a message to
UMCOR.

Because of  the difficulty of outside intervention, the bishop has given
$2,000 of the UMCOR grant and another $3,000 from the United Methodist
Church in Switzerland to Sopaj to purchase food, detergent and other
supplies in Kosovo cities not damaged by the fighting. He will then
distribute items to the displaced.

Bolleter also is working with a Swiss government task force , which
would provide transportation for other supplies into Kosovo. The
remainder of the UMCOR grant will be used for those supplies.

"They promised that they will have space on their lorries for our help
and that they will deliver it to the place and person we ask for," he
said.

United Methodists can assist with donations to UMCOR's International
Disaster Response No. 982450-8, earmarked "Kosovo Emergency." Checks can
be placed in church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475
Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. 

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
Releases and photos also available at
http://www.umc.org/umns/