A young Kosovar boy rests with his family as he arrives with many hundreds of refugees after a two-day walk to Montenegro IMAGE GALLERY: Belgrade cruise missile strike The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO NATO rejects Yugoslav cease-fire offer Airstrikes hit home in a small Serbian town More Kosovo refugees flown out of Macedonia  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS NATO officials describe attacks from day one through day 13

April 6, 1999
Web posted at: 12:10 p.m. EDT (1610 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States will use its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a temporary home for up to 20,000 Kosovo refugees, administration and congressional sources told CNN on Tuesday.

The sources said airlifting of the first refugees could begin by the end of the week.

Before settling on Guantanamo, the Clinton administration also had considered military bases in Guam and Europe as temporary camps for the homeless Kosovars who have been streaming by the thousands to neighboring Albania, Macedonia and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.

It will take several days to bring in extra personnel and prepare the U.S. military facility so it can adequately house the Kosovars and supply them with food and medical attention.

"The facilities necessary are not there now," Lt. Jane Campbell of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command said on Monday.

It was not immediately clear what procedure would be used to decide which Kosovars are selected for temporary resettlement at the U.S. base on Cuba's southeastern tip.

Relief officials said the United States would likely focus on refugees at the Macedonia border, trying to keep together family members and, as much as possible, entire villages.

In the mid-1990s, Guantanamo housed 50,000 Haitians and Cubans seeking asylum in the United States. Since then the base's staffing has dropped to a "bare-bones" level, Campbell said.

The shelter the United States is offering is meant to be a temporary measure, not permanent resettlement, President Clinton said on Monday.

"The refugees belong in their own homes, in their own land," he said. "Our immediate goal is to provide relief. Our long-term goal is to give them their right to return."

The United States and other NATO nations said on Monday they would temporarily take in a total of 110,000 refugees to ease the pressure on Yugoslavia's neighbors.

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