Operation Horseshoe - Number of Refugees

Number of Refugees

By early June 1999, more than 80 percent of the entire population of Kosovo and 90 percent of Kosovar Albanians were displaced from their homes.

— Human Right Watch report

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, by March 1999 (prior to NATO bombing), more than 200,000 Albanian civilians were internally displaced, almost 70,000 Albanians had fled the province to neighboring countries and Montenegro, and a further 100,000 Yugoslav nationals, mostly Kosovar Albanians, had sought asylum in Western Europe. Also, thousands of ethnic Albanian villages in Kosovo had been partially or completely destroyed by burning or shelling.

Within three weeks of the start of NATO strategic bombing during the Kosovo War, there were 525,787 refugees from Kosovo in neighboring countries. A month later, on 12 May, the total number of refugees had risen to 781,618. By June 1999, the Yugoslav military, Serbian police and paramilitaries expelled 862,979 Albanians from Kosovo, A claim disputed by many Serbian politicians. and several hundred thousand more were internally displaced, in addition to those displaced prior to March. Approximately 440,000 refugees crossed the border to Albania and 320,000 to FYR Macedonia. Montenegro hosted around 70,000 refugees, while Bosnia and Herzegovina received more than 30,000. Amnesty International estimated that "nearly one million people have been forced to flee Kosovo".

Radio Television of Serbia never showed the columns of Albanians expelled by Serbian police and paramilitaries, except when a convoy of fleeing Albanians was killed by NATO bombs. Moreover, Milosevic's propaganda trying to convince international public that huge columns of refugees fleeing Kosovo because of NATO's bombing, not Yugoslav Army military operations.