Ireland must be prepared to accept further groups of Kosovan refugees despite the Balkan peace agreement, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said yesterday.
Refugees would not be able to return to Kosovo immediately, she said, a view which was confirmed by the latest group of Kosovars to arrive here.
The group of 85 refugees, who arrived on Thursday and are staying at the former Ursuline convent in Waterford, say they have accepted that their stay may not be a short one.
Their questions concerned not the possibility of returning to Kosovo but the availability of work in the area and whether their children would have access to education.
Mr Joe Moran, deputy director of the Irish Refugee Agency, assured them that the Department of Education would be organising classes, not only for children but also for adults anxious to improve their English.
He said the children would receive special preparatory classes in advance of attending local schools. "Your children will go to school in September with Irish children," he added to nods of approval from many of the group who had gathered to meet journalists.
Classes in Albanian, he said, would also be provided to keep the children informed about their own language and culture. This had been done for refugees from Bosnia and Vietnam.
Members of the group stressed that their preference would be to return home as soon as possible, but many of them simply do not have any homes to which to return. Stories of the destruction of their houses by Serbian security forces were commonplace among the group, while some expressed the fear that it could be years before there is a permanent peace in Kosovo.
Ms O'Donnell said she would be bringing contingency proposals to the Government shortly "to allow us to extend our welcome to refugees should this become necessary".
The first phase of Ireland's involvement in the humanitarian evacuation programme from Macedonia ends with the arrival of another group - some of whom will also be accommodated in Waterford - in Cork this week. But it is possible, the Minister said, that the UNHCR could ask us to take more in the future.
"It is vital that the very old and the very young are not forced to spend the harsh Balkan winter in tents in overcrowded camps," she added. "The termination of the war should not mark the end of our humanitarian efforts to help so much."
Mr Istrev Deliv, who is in Waterford with his wife and two daughters, said the houses in his home village of Rezall, near Pristina, had been burned or bombed by the Serbs. He also said that between 150 and 180 people from the area, mainly, but not all, men, had been shot and buried in a mass grave.
His daughter, Ganimete, said the family had left their home two months ago after being ordered to do so by the Serbian police. "We didn't know where we were going," she said through an interpreter.
The family was put on a train to Macedonia where they waited, "without blankets or anything", at the border crossing at Blace before gaining admittance.
Another man, Mr Mendi Pllava, said children in his village had been taken by the police and returned only after the payment of ransoms. "It would take me a month to tell you everything I have seen," he said.
The group expressed concern at reports that gypsies from another country had been seen begging in Waterford while masquerading as Kosovan refugees. Mr Andrew McMahon of the Irish Refugee Agency said this had also happened elsewhere in the country, and was a source of great annoyance to the refugees from Kosovo.
"These are educated people who are used to a good living; begging is not in their culture," he said.
