Snowstorm Impedes Kosovo Relief Effort

The winter’s first big snowfall hampered the massive international monitoring and aid effort aimed at helping tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees in Kosovo. Aid convoys were delayed or diverted as the early storm dumped about a foot of snow on the southern Serbian province. International relief agencies had warned of a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo if an estimated quarter of a million ethnic Albanians displaced from their homes and often living in the open did not return to their homes or shelters before the bitter Balkan winter set in.