Montenegrin police find 16 more bodies of drowned Kosovo Roma refugees
By Associated Press, 08/25/99
PODGORICA, Yugoslavia - Montenegrin police said Wednesday they had found an additional 16 bodies of Kosovo Gypsy refugees after a ship used to smuggle people to Italy sank last week.
There are fears that as many as 100 refugees, including women and children, might have been on the ship, which went down Aug. 15 or 16. So far, police have found a total of 33 bodies, including the 16 found Tuesday.
Meanwhile, police arrested several people suspected of organizing the smuggling of Kosovo Gypsies, or Roma, the Pobijeda daily reported Wednesday.
The smugglers are said to be charging $1,100 for each adult and up to $550 for children, depending on their age.
Montenegrin media reported that 69 Roma were rescued last Friday from what appeared to be another ship that sank in the Adriatic.
Since June, Italian border guards have intercepted hundreds of ships with Roma trying to flee retaliatory attacks by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. About 80,000 of them have fled Kosovo since international peacekeepers took control of the southern Serbian province after NATO's bombing attacks and the pullout of the Yugoslav army.
Italy has said it will no longer consider immigrants from Yugoslavia as refugees, but as illegal aliens.
