Migration

Preparation and Planning

There are some multimedia resources supplied for use in conjunction with this lesson. If you are able, ensure you have access to a laptop and overhead projector or whiteboard.

Make sure that you photocopy enough Student Worksheets for the whole class. Student Worksheet 1 is designed to be worked through in pairs. Worksheets 2 and 3 can be used by groups of three to four students. This lesson comprises a number of short episodes. You may like to tell students how many episodes are to be covered off at the start of the lesson so that they know how much work will be covered. This can help to drive pace and keep the group focused.

Episode 3 has the option to be delivered as a card sort activity. If this option is preferred you will need to create, photocopy and cut up sufficient sets of the cards for all groups in advance of the lesson.

Migration and refugees can be a sensitive topic, particularly in ethnically mixed classes. Ensure that you approach the subject appropriately and that you are aware if any students are refugees or are of Balkan heritage.

About the MOD Topic

Kosovo is a province in southern Serbia. The province's capital and largest city is Pristina. Kosovo has a population of around two million people, predominantly ethnic Albanians, with smaller populations of Serbs, Turks and other ethnic groups.

The province is the subject of a long-running political and territorial dispute between the Serbian government and Kosovo's Albanian population. Conflict increased throughout the 1990s when Kosovo came under Serbian rule. The Serbian Government oppressed the Albanians in a number of ways, banning Albanian language newspapers and TV broadcasts and not recognising Albanian as an official language of the state. Albanians could vote, but because there were so few of them compared to the Serbians, their votes were insignificant. This, coupled with high levels of poverty and unemployment, lead to simmering tensions between Albanians and Serbs.

The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed in the early 1990s. Their goal was for Kosovo to become a republic and to be completely seperate from Serbia. Their movement was peaceful for a number of years, partly because they could not hope to defeat the far larger Serbian military force, but in 1996, frustrated by years of Serbian oppression, the KLA carried out a series of attacks on both ordinary Serbian civilians and Serbian security forces. This resulted in a series of vicious Serb retaliations and the gradual slide towards war began.

In 1999, the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR (The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) registered around 850,000 Kosovan Albanians who had fled from Kosovo by foot, car and tractor or had been ethnically cleansed from the province by Serb forces under Slobodan Milosevic. They were received by countries bordering the region; Macedonia and Albania receiving the highest influx. A number of international agencies and the British military set up camps in the receiving countries to house the refugees and to tend to their immediate needs. The MOD worked with the UNHCR and a number of international aid agencies, as well as the French, German and Dutch armed forces, to provide shelter, food and medical attention to the hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming over the borders. Many refugees were subsequently relocated to other countries in Europe. The UK alone housed over 5,000 refugees temporarily.

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) carried out a series of attacks on Kosovo, in an attempt to force Milosevic to comply with their demands. Eleven weeks of air strikes led to the indictment of Milosevic and the signing of a peace agreement, with Belgrade agreeing to a full military withdrawal from Kosovo.

Refugees began preparing to return within days of the end of air strikes. By the time Serb units had finally pulled out of Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of refugees had already crossed back into the province. NATO forces were required to maintain a presence in Kosovo for some years after Belgrade withdrew in order to ease tensions between Serbs and Albanians.
BBC information on Kosovo http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/kosovo_fact_files/default.stm

In February 2008, Kosovo's parliament voted for independence following a settled period after the conflicts. Britain, Washington and most European countries quickly recognised it as independent state, much to the dismay of Serbia and Russia.

In June 08 Soldiers from the UK's 2nd Battalion, The Rifles, were successfully deployed to Kosovo for a month-long peacekeeping mission as part of the UK's existing commitment to the NATO/EU shared pan-Balkans Operational Reserve Force (ORF). Following a review of the security situation in Kosovo and the UK's wider military commitments, the MOD agreed that the UK contribution to the ORF will cease on 31 December 2008 (See News Article - UK's Contribution to UK's Reserve Force).

In December 2008, the EU launched a justice mission for Kosovo, EULEX - the EU's biggest ever civilian operation. EULEX officially took over from a post-war UN mission that has been in the disputed territory since 1999. EULEX comprises 9,000 staff helping to oversee Kosovo's transition to statehood.

The News Article - Foreign Secretary Statement of Kosovo, is a demonstration of the UK's ongoing co-operation with the population of Kosovo, the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and other international bodies to help develop a stable, democratic, multi-ethnic and peaceful Kosovo.

Further information about Kosovo's future can be found on the BBC and Guardian news websites.

Further Opportunities for Learning

The UK invested millions of pounds in aid, supplied thousands of military personnel and accommodated thousands of refugees during the Balkans crisis. Students to write 300 words on why they think we helped the people of a country so far away during their time of need when we have so many problems of our own.

With reference to real-life examples, ask students to prepare a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate how migration can be either forced or voluntary. Limit students to eight slides. Presentations should include visual source material such as photography, diagrams or film files. You may like to ask students to prepare presentations for a group of younger students.

Ask students to choose a national migration they have studied. Students should write a piece, explaining why the migrants were attracted to the area of the country they settled in and describe the effects that the migration caused for that area.

Ask students to research the major forced migrations in the last two hundred years and to produce a presentation based on their research for the class.

Ask students to research and create a case study on the Balkans for their files. Explain to them that they can use the case study to help them revise for their exams. Their case study should include:
| A brief history of the events in Kosovo during the 1990s until today
| An explanation of why and how the Kosovan Albanians became refugees
| A time-line
| An outline of humanitarian aid delivered
| Photos (they can use the Defence Dynamics library to help them with this)
| Ask students to sort the following list of factors into 'push' and 'pull'.

This activity can either be done on the board, or can be adapted into a card sort activity:
| Lack of employment
| Job opportunities
| Affordable healthcare
| Poor quality of housing
| Persecution
| Drought
| War
| Genocide
| Increased wealth
| Good schools
| Retirement
| Racial tension
| Warm climate
| Housing
| Lack of healthcare
| Community breakdown
| Poor climate
| New experiences
| Friends and family
| Famine
| Infertile land

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.