Its report provided a chilling glimpse of the Kosovo conflict's impact on civilians throughout Yugoslavia. People used to go into the shelters, but now just carry on with their normal lives, but are living in extreme fear of being bombed. The bombing of petrochemical sites has left Serbian parents fearful about the release of chemicals that could harm their children. Children are basically sitting around, afraid to go out, and have no kind of normal life. . . . But conditions inside Kosovo were much worse, the monitors said.
Children are desperately afraid.
Uppard said that, although their Serbian escorts prevented the inspectors from going to specific areas where they hoped to find internally displaced Kosovo refugees, the team did encounter one group of about 15,000 uprooted Kosovars seeking shelter in the still-intact ethnic Albanian village of Sajkovac, north of Podujevo. Save the Children's officials said that relief agencies must be allowed into Kosovo immediately, even if the fighting and bombing continue. The door is open now, and we should push a bit more to try to get in. Aaronson was strongly critical of NATO nations and media for focusing on the air strikes and refugees who have left Kosovo while paying little attention to the humanitarian needs of civilians still inside the province. Life in the camps is not perfect, but the real human crisis is going on inside Kosovo.