EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Monday, April 19, 1999-11:43CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - two U.S. newspapers were reporting on Monday that the United States and its NATO allies are considering steps that would restrict the flow of oil to Yugoslavia. The New York Times reported from Brussels that the United States wants NATO to plan ways of blocking deliveries by sea of oil to Yugoslavia.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO missiles struck a communications transmitter near the Kosovo capital Pristina on Monday morning, taking the alliance's bombing campaign into its 27th day. Yugoslavia's state-run news agency Tanjug said missiles hit the transmitter at Mokra Gora near Pristina at 0955 hours local time (0755 GMT). An air raid warning was sounded in the city an hour earlier.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO struck Serbia's second-largest city and a chemical-manufacturing town early Monday. Air raid sirens sounded early today in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, as well as in Novi Sad, Nis and Cacak, which have all been repeatedly targeted since the NATO campaign began on 24 March. The state-run Tanjug news agency reported four powerful detonations early today in Baric, site of a chemical plant 12 miles southwest of Belgrade.

SWITZERLAND (EmergencyNet News) - The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said on Monday Yugoslav forces appeared to be turning back ethnic Albanians trying to leave the country. A UNHCR spokesman said the latest flow of refugees from Kosovo into Albania had stopped overnight. He said refugees had also stopped crossing into Macedonia and Montenegro.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - NATO Secretary General Javier Solana and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright both said Sunday no allied ground troops would be sent to Kosovo now, but neither totally ruled out sending them later.

From the ERRI Watch Center

YUGOSLAVIA (EmergencyNet News) - As the government in Belgrade shut the main crossing point for ethnic Albanian refugees fleeing Kosovo on Sunday, NATO pounded Serbia's second-largest city and a chemical-manufacturing town early Monday. Accusing Albania of supporting "aggression," angry Yugoslav officials  broke diplomatic relations with their southern neighbor andclosed the Morini border point, where tens of thousands of refugees have flooded out.

Albanian soldiers swarmed around the border station early Monday, ordering reporters not to approach. International monitors described the situation as tense and said it was unclear how long the crossing would be closed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador for war crimes claimed that tens of thousands of Kosovars may have died at the hands of Serb security forces, and said Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was being investigated by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands.

Air raid sirens sounded early Monday in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, as well as in Novi Sad, Nis and Cacak, which have all been repeatedly targeted since the NATO campaign began on 24 March. The state-run Tanjug news agency reported four powerful explosions early Monday in Baric, site of a chemical plant 12 miles southwest of Belgrade.

Tanjung also reported that a NATO missile slammed into a provincial government building in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city. Three missiles also struck Paracin, a town 90 miles southeast of Belgrade that has Yugoslav army barracks. The news agency also reported attacks around Kraljevo, 75 miles south of Belgrade, and in Sremska Mitrovica, 40 miles west of the capital.

A Danube River bridge that serves as a major link between Serbia and Croatia was struck and slightly damaged. The bridge connects Backa Palanka in Serbia with Ilok in Croatia.

Overcast weather limited NATO operations on the 26th night of air raids, but officials said all planes returned safely. NATO jets flew more than 500 missions in the 24-hour period ending Sunday afternoon -- its highest daily total yet. NATO officials said Sunday's bombing knocked out 13 military vehicles, hit two MiG-21 fighter jets on the ground and struck supply lines. Serbian media said NATO also struck several bridges.

NATO said the first Apache helicopters were expected in Albania from Italy but severe rains delayed deployment at least Tuesday. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said today that Apache helicopters would go into action before the beginning of next week.

Refugees poured out of Kosovo at the rate of a thousand an hour on Sunday, bringing Serb forces closer to emptying the province of its ethnic Albanian majority. An estimated 40,000 refugees either left Kosovo for neighboring territory over the weekend or were at its borders.

NATO officials reported 43 mass grave sites in Kosovo and said refugee reports suggested more than 3,000 people had been killed by Serb forces in Kosovo since airstrikes began. But David Scheffer, the U.S. ambassador for war crimes, said based on unconfirmed refugee reports and other sources, he believed the NATO estimate of the number of ethnic Albanians who had died to be "a very low estimate." Scheffer said: "We have upwards to about 100,000 men that we cannot account for." Refugees have spoken of ethnic Albanian men being separated from relatives before the families were forced to flee. He said, "We have no idea where those men are now."

On Sunday, NATO said it had graphic evidence, including film taken from allied aircraft as well as refugees' accounts, that Serb forces had assembled Kosovo Albanians into grave-digging "chain gangs."  

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