Task Force Albania - the Kosovo Connection

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this, the second of John Van Weenen's books on the story of the British Charity "Task Force Albania", the author concentrates mainly on its Kosovo connection. His group was one of the first foreign aid agencies to enter the province alongside NATO on 16th June 1999. The carnage and destruction he encountered, despite his long experience in the humanitarian field, sickened him to his stomach.

As the trickle of refugees returning to their homeland became a flood, with almost one million lost souls on the move

he focused his efforts on the remaining 50,000 Kosovar Albanians trapped in make-shift camps in northern Macedonia. During the months that followed, relief missions were undertaken to much of southern and western Kosovo with the greatest emphasis being placed on the devastated cities of Gjakova, Peja and their respective populations.

Explicit accounts of unbelievable brutality and barbarism, inflicted on the Kosovar Albanians are recounted by eye witnesses and told here

many of which appear in print for the first time. Perhaps the most tragic of all were the rape victims - the touched women who through no fault of their own had brought disgrace to their families. Twenty thousand Albanian women, many in their teens, were systematically impregnated by Serb soldiers to produce, as has now happened - Serbian babies. What better way to defeat the enemy than by striking at the very heart of his family. Contained within these pages are some of the most heart-rending stories imaginable.

The saddest fact of all, is that none of them were imagined