MCIC Situation report Macedonia no. 17/2001

September 24-30, 2001

Skopje, October 1st, 2001


HUMANITARIAN SITUATION

Displaced persons

Drastically reduced number of the IDP.
In Macedonia, according to the ICRC/MKCK, the number of internally displaced persons (IDP) is 41,212 persons. Of them, 3,595 are accommodated in the collective centers. The reduction of the number of IDP is due to the calming of the situation in Tetovo and the other crises regions.

More and more refugees are returning from Kosovo.
According to the UNHCR data, there are about 26,100 refugees (ethnic Albanians), while about 55,700 persons have returned in Macedonia.


HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Food

El Hilal distributed 20 tons food stuffs and hygiene articles for the Lipkovo municipality.
MCIC distributed a total of 8.7 tons of flour, 8.5 tons of animal food, 600 kg of sugar, 600 liters of cooking oil, 300 kg salt and hygiene articles to the villages of Lukovica, Urvic, Jelovjane, Jegunovce, Slatino and Lesok.

Health

WHO/ The World health Organization and the Ministry of Health are preparing an assessment list for estimating the damages of the health facilities in the crises regions.

Shelters

On September 25 UNHCR delivered 203 family humanitarian packages for the displaced persons from Lesok and Slatino. The packages entail blankets, mattresses, plastic tarpaulins, construction tools, water canisters, kitchen utensils and hygiene items.

On September 25 UNHCR also through El Hilal delivered 20 family packages to Lojane and 50 to Vaksince.

Water supply and sanitation

There are no new activities in this period.

Schools and education

After an 18 day boycott of classes, about 600 Albanian secondary school children returned to the schools in Kumanovo.

The pupils from the Macedonian language classes from the elementary school "Bratstvo-Migeni" in Tetovo still have their classes in the school courtyard.

Classes have not commenced as yet in the schools in the villages Urvic, Novo Selo and Jelovjane because the teachers cannot reach their jobs.

Humanitarian de-mining

ICRC/MKCK on September 24 had lectures for precaution from mines and other contact explosives in the municipalities: Tearce, Vratnica, Djepciste and the villages: Radusa, Aracinovo, Lopate and Opae.

An Intersos de-mining team began searching the field for possible set mines and unexploded devices in the village Neprosteno.

Protection and human rights

There are no such activities in this period.

Psycho-social activities

Megasi, SAZM, OOZM and ROZM "Daja" work on the psycho-social support of the displaced women and children.

Post-crisis rehabilitation

The expert team for damage assessment, comprising representatives from the Ministry of Transport and Connection in association with IMG from September 24 started conducting activities in Lipkovo, Slupcane, Tetovo, Vejce, Lavce and Selce. Hitherto, estimations have been made of 1,660 damaged buildings, about 70% of which have first and second category damage, 20% are from third category and 10% are fully destroyed. The prioritized assessments are planned to be finished until the end of September, so as to perform the preparations for the donor conference, which is to take place on October 15 in Brussels.
UNHCR in cooperation with the European Union and other independent agencies for aid is planning until the end of the year to reconstruct about 1,500 houses in the crisis regions. UNHCR shall repair the less damaged houses, while the EU will repair mainly more severely damaged buildings.

Building measures of trust

On September 26 in the village Neprosteno, under the aegis of the Council of the municipality Tearce, representaives from the Macedonian and Albanian populace met and discussed political issues. They viewed the common creation of conditions for the return of the IDP, their security and the future life together in the village.


HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATION


Financing

On September 26 in Skopje a delegation was present from the Ministry of Foreign affairs of Italy, which had a meeting with the Minister for labor and social policy, Bedredin Ibraimi. The aim of the visit is particularizing the possibilities for directing the aid of the Italian Government to Macedonia amounting to 4 million German marks for mitigating part of the damages caused by the crisis.

FAO/The International Association for Food will aid the project for providing sowing wheat and artificial fertilizer for 55 thousand persons that will get 150 kg sowing wheat and 150 kg artificial fertilizer each. The value of the project amounts to 2.5 million German marks. The realization of the projects comes as a result of the estimations and analyses done on the situations in the crises regions, made by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Germany increased the urgent aid to Macedonia to seven million German marks. The additional two million German marks will be allocated for surmounting the consequences from the crisis in the country. One million and 800 thousand German marks will be remunerated at once, and they will finance concrete measures for aiding the displaced persons and repairing the damaged houses in the crisis regions.

Coordination

Tenth meeting of the NGO humanitarian coordination.
The present informed of the activities in the past week. The Megasi representative asked for information from the Red Cross of Macedonia about the termination of registration of IDP after September 11 2001. On the meeting the problem of supplying displaced pupils with books was underlined. The present assented that the UNICEF request to local NGOs for the number of displaced children in and from the crisis regions is belated and help is not feasible. After the debate the following conclusions were drawn: on October 1 2001 to hold an additional meeting, where the additional activities that the NGO humanitarian coordination should undertake for mitigating and improving the situation of the displaced persons; forming a coordinative body in Tetovo from this region; to warn Milosrdie for the final time, which would define their participation in the NGO humanitarian coordination; and to hold a meeting where the organizations distributing humanitarian aid in the limited access areas would be present and coordinated for appropriate allocation of the aid.


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