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Australia ultimatum

Kosovo refugees

to leave

WODONGA: The government issued and ultimatum on Tuesday to a group of refugees from Kosovo who want to stay in Australia: agree to return home or face detention in remote Outback centres.

The government is insisting 180 ethnic Albanians must leave Australia, even though many say their homeland is not safe. A total of 32 have disappeared in Australia, apparently in an attempt to avoid being sent back to Kosovo, the government says.

Federal Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock wrote to the refugees offering them incentives to return home, including paying for their failed legal attempts to block their expulsion from Australia.

Ruddock also threatened to send those refusing to immigration detention centres in remote areas pending deportation. Those sent would be liable to pay costs of around Australian dollars 90 a day, said Immigration Department spokesman Phil Mayne.

The refugees are now staying at the Bandiana centre in northern Victoria state. "If you volunteer to jump on the plane, we will organise a charter flight," Mayne said, "It avoids them going to a detention centre".

Volunteers needed to sign agreements to return to Kosovo by 9 a.m Wednesday, (GMT 2300), he said.

Speaking in Canberra, Ruddock said that 32 of the group were "unlawfully in the community" after failing to return to the Bandiana centre on Sunday.

Temporary safe haven visas were granted to the refugees during the war in the Balkans. All 180 refugees officially became illegal immigrants on Sunday when their documents expired and they had not left the country.ÑAP