SKOPJE, Macedonia -- With conditions in Kosovo worsening daily, relief workers on Sunday expressed increasing anxiety about the fate of the hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians cut off from food supplies by the fighting.
Virtually all relief organizations, which numbered more than 30 before NATO started airstrikes last week, have abandoned their Kosovo operations, which provided food and supplies to more than 200,000 ethnic Albanians who have left their homes over the past year of fighting.U.N. officials report more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians -- 25 percent of Kosovo's population -- have been driven from their homes. There was no way to independently verify any of the information coming from Kosovo, however, since foreign journalists have not been allowed into the province.
The civilian population has been caught in the middle of a brutal struggle between Serb forces and guerillas seeking Kosovo's independence from Serbia, one of two states that make up Yugoslavia.
In the weeks leading up to the airstrikes, aid groups distributed substantial stocks of food and supplies to the Albanians who have been living in war-damaged houses, camps and other makeshift shelters.
"We estimate that there are one to two weeks of food per family (remaining)," said Jason Miko, the spokesman for Mercy Corps International, one of the largest relief groups operating in Kosovo. "But we're not sure whether that will hold because the new fighting has displaced even more people."
If the fighting continues, food stores may begin to run out by midweek for the displaced ethnic Albanians, many of whom are in remote locations, he said. There are no plans to resume distribution until the NATO attacks end.
Relief workers still in Kosovo have pleaded for air drops of supplies, but it is unclear whether this would help. "They are so frightened, I doubt they'd come out into the open to get the supplies if they were dropped," Miko said.
Conditions in Kosovo were routinely described by diplomats and aid workers Sunday as chaotic.
There were many unconfirmed reports of Serb forces killing civilians. There also were reports that Serb forces were emptying villages of ethnic Albanians and forcing them to march to the border.
A spokesman for the group of international observers forced to leave Kosovo before the airstrikes said that contacts who remain in the province paint a dire picture.
"It's ethnic cleansing -- you cannot describe it in any other way," said Sandy Bayth, a spokesman for the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. "The Serbs are simply going into areas and systematically cleansing whole towns and villages."
Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, is in near anarchy, said aid workers who remained in the city and were interviewed by telephone. "Shops, restaurants and offices have been burned and looted," said one aid worker who spoke to Cox Newspapers from a Pristina residence on condition of anonymity for fear of her life. "We have electricity only a little, so we do not get much information from the outside world. Most people -- particularly those who the Serbs associate with Westerners, the media or relief agencies -- stay in their homes and pray that the soldiers don't come."