If the Kosovo peace deal holds and there are no further conflicts in the region, up to two million refugees could be on the move trying to return to their homes, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
"This is a major challenge to the international community," Mr Dennis McNamara, the special envoy of the UNHCR, said yesterday. If all the figures of displaced population groups in the region are added up, the total comes to over two million people who will need help to move back to their homes, he said.
Mr McNamara said he chaired a brainstorming inter-agency meeting in Geneva three days ago to discuss plans for accommodating ethnic Albanian refugees in Macedonia and Albania during the winter.
The project was huge, involving building roads and bringing electricity to remote parts of the two impoverished countries, and moving it to Kosovo would further complicate things, he said. The entire population of Kosovo could be in need of humanitarian assistance; a massive amount of rebuilding will be needed to support a sudden influx of people, he said.
Aid agencies are gravely concerned about how hundreds of thousands of refugees will cope with living in tent cities during the harsh Balkan winter and are planning to provide more permanent facilities, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr McNamara said the international community should commit "massive" resources to helping them go home.
The UNHCR has proposed a four-stage repatriation plan: planning, rebuilding, repatriating, supporting sustainable reintegration. Work to promote the return of refugees will begin only when it is satisfied that the necessary groundwork has been completed and those returning can do so in "conditions of safety and dignity".
The UNHCR expected many refugees to just pack up and go home as soon as the war ended despite the danger of returning to an unsafe environment, he said.