This is a document in Serbian
and English
where you can find various
information concerning
the NATO military action
against Serbia.
1999;318:1097 (24 April)
Call for international community to protect children in Kosovo
Negin Shamsian
The international community has a duty to find a way of
protecting all children, of whatever ethnic origin, remaining
in
Kosovo, Professor David Southall, consultant paediatrician
at the
North Staffordshire Hospital, Stoke on Trent, told the
annual
general meeting of the Royal College of Paediatrics and
Child
Health in York earlier this month.
Professor Southall, director of Child Advocacy International,
was
reporting on his recent visit to Kosovo. Child Advocacy
International, a humanitarian aid organisation dedicated
to
providing hospital care for children in areas of extreme
poverty
and armed conflict, has recently withdrawn its team of
doctors,
including a child psychiatrist, a general practitioner,
and a
paediatrician, from Kosovo to northern Albania. The team
had been
in Kosovo since last October.
Problems faced by sick or injured children will have increased
if
reports that the main hospital in Pristina had been closed
or
destroyed turn out to be correct, he said.
Professor Southall highlighted the fact that there had
been no
aid in Kosovo since the air strikes and emphasised that
the
international community had to ensure that urgent humanitarianaid
was ready at the borders, should a peace initiative succeed
and
aid workers regain access to the province.
Given the situation reported by refugees, Professor Southall
thought it likely that medical aid within the province
had now
ended and that conditions for all children, particularly
those
who were ill or injured would be appalling. Kosovo at
the present
was "sheer hell for children. There is universal fear.
Many
children have lost their parents and siblings, have no
food and
are seriously ill."
Professor Southall concluded by stating that paediatricians
were
urgently required to work not only in Albania and Macedonia
with
the refugees but also to be ready and willing to work
back in
Kosovo, to protect and help children of all ethnic backgrounds.
He felt that doctors should be advocating an immediate
peace
settlement.
Dr Charles Shepherd, a consultant paediatrician from Portadown,
northern Ireland, said: "Britain has excellent doctors
able to
provide urgent help but unable to leave owing to the
policies of
NHS hospital trusts."
Response to the above article:
Help children everywhere
Predrag Maksimovich, otolaryngologist, Bulawayo, (30 April 1999)
NATO countries are making an unpardonable aggression on
a
sovereign country. A precedent was made that will certainly
lead
to many serious consequences among which the possibility
of the
III World War is prominent.
Nobody is being helped with bombs.
Huge humanitarian and refugee crisis caused by this attack
is
left to the international community to solve.
The hypocrisy of the NATO leaders are now being continued
in the
medical community.
Help the children in Kosovo and refugee camps? Of course.
But who
is going to help the children in the rest of Yugoslavia.
Who is
to return from the dead the children that are already
euphemistically called 'collateral damage'.
It is high time that all people join in an effort to stop
this
atrocious and very costly mistake.