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VATICAN RADIO CONTINUES TO SAVE LIVES OF KOSOVO REFUGEES
Case of 3-Year-Old with Heart Disease

VATICAN CITY, AUG 24 (ZENIT).- Thanks to Vatican Radio's service for Kosovo and Albania, 3-year-old Ermonella, an Albanian, will be hospitalized in Italy with congenital heart problems.

Ermonella Lakay's case was discovered by volunteers of the Scutari-Caritas, during the humanitarian crisis caused by ethnic cleansing and allied bombs in Kosovo. On the eve of August 15, during its "Balkans Special" program, Vatican Radio made an appeal for adequate medical care for Ermonella. The appeal was answered immediately by Florence's Mejer Pediatric Hospital. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also interested in Ermonella's case. The Ministry told Vatican Radio it will speed up the bureaucratic process for the child's residence in Italy, in cooperation with the Italian Embassy in Tirana.

After the end of the war, al least 11,000 Albanian refugees from Kosovo decided to stay in Albania. According to the Red Cross in Lombardy, among these, 200-400 -- mainly women and children, need medical care or surgery that the local hospitals are unable to offer.

Giuseppe Lanzi, director of the Scutari-Caritas caring for the "forgotten refugees" of Kosovo, said that after Vatican Radio's appeal, two hospitals contacted Caritas in order to help Ermonella. "We were greatly relieved, when we received the fax. Her mother was here. We met this child during the emergency in Kosovo. She was helped by Caritas-Spain, which had set up an out-patients clinic to help people from Kosovo and Albania. We were told about this case and, from the very beginning, had serious problems to have her received abroad. As she is Albanian, she does not have the right to political refugee status. We needed a hospital that would treat her for free. Thanks to Vatican Radio's appeal, after a month-and-a-half, the problems has been resolved. The Mejer Hospital will care for the child, and Caritas-Florence for the mother."

At present, the Kosovo refugees in Albania are virtually forgotten by the media, especially in the wake of the recent earthquake in Turkey. International solidarity has lost its strength. Lanzi believes this is the most serious problem Caritas faces, in trying to respond to the most urgent cases.

Since Vatican Radio began its "Balkans Special" program, which was heard in Albanian every night by refugees living in Albanian refugee camps, many families who were separated because of the violence, received the necessary information to be reunited, either in the refugee camps or abroad, especially in Italy.
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