Doc. 8382
21 April 1999

Emergency assistance for Kosovar children

Motion for a resolution

presented by Mrs Pozza Tasca and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

The Assembly,

      Considering that Kosovo is undergoing a veritable humanitarian catastrophe in which the dead are forgotten, the living have lost their identity, rights are being denied and human dignity has been wiped out. The ordeal is never-ending. It is always the children who suffer most. They have always been a source of profit for too many people. We cannot turn a blind eye to this tragedy: children are being sold for prostitution, for adoption. Their organs are being sold as mere "goods", when they are not simply being used as targets. A short while ago Aladin Hodzich, a Bosnian child aged four, had both his legs blown off by one of the 10 000 anti-personnel mines laid by the belligerents. More recently, on 2 April 1999, Dren Zaka, a Kosovar child born in Jacova on 6 February 1988, was the only survivor of the massacre of his whole family. The Serbs killed his three little sisters before his very eyes, and he received a bullet wound trying to defend them;

      Having noted that the Kukës camp alone houses an estimated 70 000 to 80 000 children between 0 and 15 years of age, most of them without their families; that in the same camp there are Yugoslav spies and Kosovar bandits ready to "market" these valuable "goods"; that a number of mysterious disappearances have already been reported; and that in Blace children are dying of meningitis and cholera, with forty deaths already registered in the past few days;

      Having regard to the fact that in its Resolution 1182 of 30 March 1999 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended that member states assist the victims in Kosovo, it has a duty to provide as much support as possibl for the children in Kosovo. This support should comprise the following:

1.       identifying the children present in the transit camps and establishing their exact situation;

2.       sending medical equipment to vaccinate new-born babies and immunise persons in order to prevent epidemics;

3.       supporting non-governmental organisations promoting adoptions and providing remote assistance to refugee children;

4.       sending specially trained personnel to guarantee the whole range of children's fundamental rights, from health to education;

5.       supervising the children and ensuring that they are not engaged in the hostilities between the warring factions.

Signed : ¹

Pozza Tasca, Italy, LDR

Alis Font, Andorra, NR

Arnau, Spain, SOC

Evin, France, SOC

Gross, Switzerland, SOC

Lento, Italy, UEL

Polenta, Italy, EPP/CD

Poptodorova, Bulgaria, SOC

Pulgar, Spain, EPP/CD

Vermot Mangold, Switzerland, SOC

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic Group

      LDR : Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group