MILITARY experts from European Union countries arrived in Albania yesterday to assess the situation in preparation for a possible multinational aid protection force in the troubled Balkan state, still racked by random violence.
"The team is made up of experts from all fields which could be involved in any kind of military operation," an EU diplomat said.
The team, of about 15 people, includes experts from the 54 nation Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union and the Council of Europe. The delegation, the second of its kind in two weeks, is due to meet the Prime Minister, Mr Bashkim Fino, and other ministers.
In Vienna, a meeting of the OSCE broke up yesterday without agreement on an international security force to oversee aid operations in Albania, diplomatic sources said. It failed to agree on whether a UN mandate was necessary to allow a security force to operate in the country.
Albania has appealed for a multinational force to oversee relief operations and to help reestablish order after weeks of violence which has divided the country.
Armed rebels and lawless gangs control most of the south from Vlore, on the Adriatic coast, to the Greek border.
A Dutch journalist was shot on Tuesday in the southern port of Sarande. She was transferred to hospital on the nearby Greek island of Corfu. Ms Wilma Goudappel worked with several Western media groups and had run a hotel in the town for several years.
Masked men in Vlore forced four Italian doctors at gunpoint to evacuate a wounded comrade on Tuesday. The doctors left by helicopter with the wounded man just two days after arriving to work with an Italian Red Cross relief mission in Vlore.
Three policemen were shot dead on Monday in the town, which has seen some of the worst violence in a popular uprising which toppled one government and is posing President Sali Berisha with his worse crisis since coming to power in 1992.
Gore remains lawless and 24 people wounded in recent weeks have been taken to Greece in convoys of private cars over the past two days for treatment.
The state run ATA news agency said a 17 year old boy was tied to a tree, doused with petrol and set on fire in Berat. It said 42 people had been killed in the town and surrounding villages since the uprising began.
Albania has been swept by violence since January when a series of popular but fraudulent investment schemes collapsed wiping out millions in savings. Riots and protests against the schemes were followed by a popular uprising in the south with thousands of people seizing weapons from army depots.
Mr Berisha has clung to power by sacking his rightist Democratic Party government and replacing it this month with a national unity cabinet headed by the opposition socialist, Mr Fino.
He agreed to elections by June and said he would resign if his party lost but he has expressed some optimism recently as he sought help from the European Union and other groups.
"I am fully convinced that I have my supporters in the south. There is a great silent majority," he was quoted as saying in an interview with the London Times newspaper.
. Meanwhile, Italy deported about 200 Albanian "undesirables" yesterday, bringing to 900 the number of people repatriated.