Voice of America Washington, DC 20547 Tel: (202) 619-2538 Fax: (202) 619-1241 E-mail: pubaff@ibb.gov

VOA Albanian Expands Refugee Hotline Program

Washington, D.C., April 26, 1999 -- For the second time in two weeks, the Voice of America's Albanian Service has expanded its Refugee Hotline program. Now a full hour effective today, the Refugee Hotline was launched as a 15-minute program on April 9 and two days later expanded to a half hour when the number of calls far exceeded expectations. The program was increased to one hour a day (10:00 to 11:00 a.m. EDT) because the volume of calls has continued to increase, now running constantly 24 hours a day.

VOA Albanian recently received and broadcast the following two messages during its program.

"Kasem Bajrami from the village of Korotice, Drenica. I lost my 4 year old daughter. I am now in the Stankovc camp, Macedonia. If anyone has any information, please call my brother Ejup in Switzerland at this number: ... My daughter's name is Drenusha Bajrami."

"I'm Alban Fani, 8 years old, from the Rugova village of Has. I am looking for my father in Kosova."

On April 8, Marc Nathanson, Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, announced that the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe would join forces to beam 24 hours a day of FM programming into Serbia from transmitter locations in nearby countries in the region. This announcement marked a dramatic increase in U.S. international broadcasts to Serbia aimed at breaking the media black-out imposed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Nathanson's announcement followed on the heels of an earlier expansion of VOA broadcasts in Albanian and Serbian. On March 24, the day of the initial air strikes, VOA Albanian added a 1300 to 1315 UTC program and VOA Serbian added a 2300 to 2315 UTC show.

VOA's Albanian Service is also reading on the air names of refugees who have registered with the International Red Cross and along with a number in Albania for refugees to call. VOA hopes this will speed the IRC's efforts to reunite families in the region.

The Voice of America broadcasts to the Balkans in Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, English, Macedonian, Serbian, and Slovene. These are just seven of the 53 languages that VOA broadcasts to an estimated weekly worldwide audience of 83 million listeners.

Contact: George Mackenzie
Phone: (202) 619-2538
E-mail: pubaff@voa.gov