KOSOVO -- This past weekend, more than 30,000 Kosovar Albanian refugees crossed the borders into Albania and Macedonia, bringing the total number of refugees fleeing to neighboring areas in recent days to more than 597,000. The refugees, many of whom have also fled to Montenegro and Bosnia, are part of the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.
Two refugees, Enver Sllamniku and his teenage daughter, stand next to the small red tractor that just brought them out of Kosovo. On the tractor trailer is what's left of their possessions -- some mattresses and blankets, bundles of clothes, a few scattered suitcases and sports bags. On top of the pile, his mother and five-year-old son are sleeping.

Along with 1,500 others, they crossed into Albania overnight and stopped on the outskirts of the small northeastern town of Kukes. More than a hundred tractors, trailers, and small cars are parked on a littered field just under a snow-clad mountain slope. They come from Vragoli, a small village a few kilometers outside Pristina.

In recent days, Church World Service has provided a total of more than $1,165,000 for blankets, tents, mattresses, and bedding to help meet the needs of refugees and displaced persons in Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Serbia. This week, we'll be providing baby formula and dry cereal for distribution to children in refugee camps in Albania.

CWS is appealing for $1.8 million to help provide food, hygienic materials, drinking water, medicines, non-food items, shelter, and other life-sustaining needs to uprooted families, through an international consortium of churches and related agencies.