Robinson visited Kosovo to examine the plight of ethnic Albanians and minorities RELATED VIDEO U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson reports on her visit with returning Kosovars. (June 30). Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on fearful Serbs in Kosovo. (June 30) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K  ALSO: NATO bombing victims head to U.S. for treatment  MESSAGE BOARD: Rebuilding Kosovo  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Focus on Kosovo

July 1, 1999
Web posted at: 5:44 a.m. EDT (0944 GMT)

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson called on the international community Wednesday to "use all its energies and commitment" to make Yugoslavia's war-ravaged Kosovo province safe for its returning ethnic Albanian refugees and its minority populations.

"I think this is the most worrying time because people are tentative about their situation and there is a pressure on the Serb minority and the Roma (Gypsy) population," the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She commented after touring the region and speaking with people directly affected by what she called a "difficult and complex situation."

"I'm more worried now than I was before I came here," Robinson said.

Robinson came for a firsthand look at Kosovo, hard-hit by a NATO bombing campaign that forced Yugoslav forces to retreat into other parts of Serbia and end what NATO said was their systematic attempts to rid the province of its majority ethnic Albanian population.

But, since the departure of the Yugoslav soldiers and the deployment of NATO forces, Robinson has received increasing reports of retaliations against the Serbs and Roma Gypsies, accused by the ethnic Albanians of looting their homes after they fled the province.

Robinson said she met with KFOR commander Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson, who told her his forces needed more police support in order to ensure the safety of all of Kosovo's people. That, the commissioner said, was an "urgent problem" that she would "bring back with me to Geneva" for a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Almost simultaneously with Robinson's remarks, Annan addressed a meeting of 18 "Friends of Kosovo" nations, calling for more police and quicker deployment of NATO troops in the province.

"Let this joint effort -- the international community providing a helping hand under the legitimacy of a Security Council mandate and in pursuit of fundamental human rights -- be the legacy that we take forward into the next century," he told foreign ministers and other representatives of the participating countries at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Annan asked nations who had offered personnel for the U.N. civilian police force to move quickly to provide them.

The U.N.'s refugee agency, UNHCR, said Wednesday that nearly half of the estimated 860,000 ethnic Albanians who fled Kosovo had returned since the June 12 end of NATO's bombing campaign. More than 70,000 Serbs have left the province since the Yugoslav army began withdrawing on June 10.

Meanwhile, bodies have turned up in an apparent mass grave. KFOR officials on Thursday said that at least 119 bodies have been discovered by German troops in Celine, a village nine miles northwest of Prizren. The number could go as high as 150 bodies. The ethnic identity of the victims was not immediately known.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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