By Benoist Matsha-Carpentier in Montenegro

1999, Kosovo. The country has been in war for several years and recent attacks in the countryside have forced thousands of people to flee their country, seeking refuge in what was still at the time the country of Serbia and Montenegro.

GA/11301

Sixty-seventh General Assembly
Plenary
24th Meeting (AM)

Tribunals Helped Forge New Culture of International Accountability; Residual Mechanism Needs Adequate Resources to Preserve Legacy, Speakers Say

OVERVIEW

Natural hazards such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, wildfires, and extreme winter weather affect a range of countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia (EMCA). In addition, rapid urban growth and environmental degradation in some countries have led to overcrowding and settlement in hazard-prone areas. Protracted conflict and limited governmental disaster management capacity in many EMCA countries compound the risks associated with natural disasters.

Posted by Angela Rucker, USAID FrontLines

Read the latest edition of USAID’s FrontLines to learn more about how the Agency is engaging youth around the world and how it is embracing mobile technology. Some highlights:

Balkans: Thousands still missing two decades after conflicts

If I could know where my son Albion is, and if I could bury him and put a flower on his grave and I would be in a better place

Nesrete Kumnova, from Kosovo whose son’s body is believed to be among those transported to Serbia, and reburied there, during the 1999 conflict.

Some 14,000 people remain unaccounted for in the countries that make up the former Yugoslavia – nearly half of the total number who disappeared in the decade since war broke out in 1991.

07/25/2012 13:23 GMT

by Olivera Nikolic

PODGORICA, July 25, 2012 (AFP) - Some 800 Kosovo Roma, including children, were left homeless after a fire tore through a shantytown refugee camp on the outskirts of the Montenegrin capital Podgorica, officials said Wednesday.

No one was hurt and it is not clear what started the blaze in the camp, where the Council of Europe in February described living conditions as "inhuman and hazardous".

The fire broke out early Tuesday and quickly reduced the camp, which consisted of some 40 wooded shacks, to ashes.

Summary:
Heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures that started on 31st January 2012 caused an emergency situation in the central and northern part of Montenegro. The most affected municipalities were: Kolasin, Mojkovac, Berane, Andrijevica, Plav, Rozaje, Bijelo Polje, Pljevlja, Zabljak, Savnik, Pluzine, Niksic, Cetinje and Bar. 1,500 families living in the villages surrounding those municipalities were completely cut off from the towns and the rest of the country. Most of them did not have electricity due to severe breakdowns caused by heavy snowfall and blizzards.

With the support of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean, the first meeting of the Drin Core Group took place on 30 May 2012 in Ohrid, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This was the first meeting of the Core Group as the official joint body according to the memorandum of understanding signed on 25 November 2011 in Tirana by the five Drin River Riparians — Albania, Greece, Kosovo (United Nations administered region under security council resolution 1244), Montenegro and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Washington

The Middle East and North Africa saw dramatic if precarious gains in press freedom in 2011, and for the first time in eight years, global media freedom did not experience an overall decline, according to a Freedom House report released today. However, due to downgrades in some previously free countries, the percentage of the world’s population living in societies with a fully free press has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade.