A Bradford aid worker told today how she saved the life of a ten-day-old baby during a mercy mission to help Kosovan refugees.

Mandy Farrar said she was heartbroken to discover the seriously-ill infant during the ten-day aid trip to Albanian refugee camps.

The child, a boy called Defrium, had been born in one of the camps and was in danger of starving to death and had not been washed since birth.

Mrs Farrar, 40, who runs the Bodhran bookshop in Saltaire, Shipley, said: "He was very ill and his mother was desperate - it was heartbreaking.

"We had to rush back to a camp where we had already delivered the aid to try and beg some back for the baby. It was an incredibly stressful day and if we hadn't managed to get some food for the baby I'm certain he would have died."

She returned home this week from the expedition with the Bradford Aid to Kosovo group saying it had changed her life forever.

Mrs Farrar, who was joined on the trip by fellow aid-workers Geoff Robinson and Bradford postman Karl Robson, said the visit to the Porcelani camp, near the Albanian capital Tirana, had been extremely rewarding.

She said: "Coming back and working in a book shop after that just doesn't ring true - especially when the kids out there are desperate for books.

"You think you have prepared yourself for what you will see by seeing pictures on the TV but nothing can prepare you to walk into those camps. The smell is terrible.

"I never thought I would see anything like that in my life. But I'm determined to go back again and help in any way I can."

Mrs Farrar said in one of the camps she visited people were sleeping in a drained swimming pool. And in another she had given her pen to a philosophy professor who had been left destitute by ethnic cleansing.

Mrs Farrar and her fellow aid workers drove a seven-tonne lorry of food and medical aid to camps in Albania.

She said that before travelling to Albania she was opposed to the Balkans war but after meeting the Albanian refugees she has totally changed her mind.

Bradford Aid For Kosovo will be giving a talk on their experiences in the Albanian camps at Bradford Resource Centre, Chapel Street, Bradford, on Monday, May 24, at 7.30pm.

Bradford to find homes for 300 refugees

Bradford is to offer homes to 300 refugees from Kosovo, it has been revealed.

The refugees - women, children and elderly people who have expressed a wish to come to the UK - will arrive in the second half of June after flying into Leeds-Bradford airport, it is understood.

The decision was made after officials in Bradford's Macedonian twin town of Skopje approached senior politicians in Bradford, asking for help.

Bradford Council is one of several Yorkshire authorities working alongside the Local Government Association (LGA) and Refugee Council in making plans to receive an estimated 3,000 Kosovans who will start arriving in the region on June 7.

Liam Hughes, director of social services for Bradford, who has the task of finding somewhere for the refugees to live and making sure there are support services for them, said: "The programme has been increased in size and has accelerated in terms of them arriving sooner than projected.

"I have asked public sector organisations in the district to consider if they have the sort of accommodation that could help. We are looking for group accommodation, which might be for example a residential home."

It is understood that one suitable building has been found already in the district.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association which is co-ordinating the relief effort said: "The Yorkshire and Humberside region has agreed to develop reception facilities for flights arriving from June 7 at Leeds-Bradford airport. It isn't clear how many will arrive."

She added that three further regions - the North East, East Midlands and West Midlands - would be prepared to receive refugees from mid to late June and would receive around 3,000 each.

"This is not compulsory for all authorities, it's purely for those who feel they have suitable space and accommodation," she said adding that the refugees would be women, children and elderly people who had all specifically chosen to come to Britain. Many of them have family connections here.

Bradford Council is pressing through the Local Government Association for added funds from the Government to cover the cost of the extra services that will be needed by the vulnerable newcomers.

Council leader Ian Greenwood said: "We have a traditional link with Macedonia and Skopje in particular, and are acutely sensitive to the problems there and are looking to help in every way we can in assisting the Kosovan refugees as they arrive in this country."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.