A Co Longford veterinary surgeon who has just returned from Kosovo will shortly launch an appeal to help rural Kosovars get their farms back into production.
Mr Brendan C. Mimnagh, secretary of a new Irish non-governmental development agency, was horrified at the damage done to the countryside by the war last year.
As a founder of Volunteers in Irish Veterinary Assistance (VIVA), Mr Mimnagh said he was horrified during a visit to Kosovo by the extent of the killings and the destruction caused. "Apart from the lack of young men, because many of the men between 15-50 were just slaughtered, the most urgent problem is lack of fodder," he said.
Mr Mimnagh, who returned on Christmas Eve, said that during the war, 60 per cent of the cattle, 70 per cent of the sheep and 90 per cent of the fowl on farms in the area he visited had been killed or stolen.
"What the Serbs could not steal they ate or destroyed in the area I visited, which is known as Velka Krusha. There are whole villages of widows there." He said that VIVA, which was originally set up as a programme of Bothar, the livestock development agency based in Limerick, has now registered as an independent entity.
It aims to provide animal healthcare and education for disadvantaged people in the developing world. It has set up projects in Africa with Bothar.
"We will be asking farmers in particular in the midlands and in the rest of the country to provide money for fodder which we will buy and bring in from Italy," he said.
"The farmers need this feeding stuff because they were driven out before they could get fodder for this winter and it will be late next summer before there will be another crop. "It is not fair to ask Irish farmers for fodder because we do not know yet what our own winter will be like but we can buy meal and get it in very efficiently and quickly to Kosovo from Italy," he added.
Mr Mimnagh said VIVA has set up an efficient local distribution network inside Kosovo. However, he said World Health Organisation estimates were that it could take five years for normal production to be re-established.
The organisation can be contacted at 13 Abbeycartron, Longford, telephone 043-47869, or by e-mail: viva@ireland.com.