As peace looms, international aid agencies face a dilemma. Without heat and insulated living quarters, showers and latrines will freeze. Health conditions, already poor, will deteriorate. People may die of cold and illness. Establishing new camps inside Kosovo, however, is a monumental challenge.
Officials hope for an orderly, staged repatriation.
It foresees Kosovo's primitive road network at a near standstill, clogged with refugee convoys moving at a snail's pace, slowing deliveries of food and materiel, and hampering nato peacekeepers as they roll into the province. Whatever the timetable, the Clinton task force is woefully unprepared to help aid agencies cope with any tidal wave of humanity. So far, it has decided little beyond which government agency will handle which aspect of the crisis. There's a consensus among members that even if an orderly return can be managed, the repatriation of refugees cannot be completed by October. Aid workers, meanwhile, have begun an information campaign inside the camps to persuade the exiled Kosovars to sit tight until things are stable and temporary winter housing is in place.