The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is ready to send its aid workers back into Kosovo on the heels of an international peacekeeping force but expects to encounter difficulties there as complex and dangerous as any in its 50-year history.
"What is clear is that this is going to be one of the most overwhelming challenges we've ever faced," Ms Paula Ghedini, spokesperson for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Skopje, said yesterday.
"It's going to be extremely difficult not only in terms of materials but also logistically and in terms of security," she said.
Once NATO forces enter Kosovo, the United Nations, its family of humanitarian agencies and partner aid organisations from around the world will stream in to help make it possible for hundreds of thousands of refugees, most now camped in Macedonia and Albania, to return home.
UNHCR anticipates landmines, widespread destruction and a near-total lack of food, water, sanitation and medical services in many parts of Kosovo.
Several hundred thousand internally displaced people (IDPs) have been living rough for months inside Kosovo, hiding from the fighting. Getting emergency supplies to them, organising the safe, orderly return of masses of refugees from Macedonia and Albania, and supporting its own staff in the field, is shaping up to be a mammoth triple job for UNHCR.
"What we're worrying about now is that they [the refugees] will be too eager to return before the mines are cleared and assistance is in place to support them," Ms Ghedini said. "The situation there will be infinitely worse than what I think they think it will be," she said.
UN relief officials said they feared the few main highways in Kosovo, some of which have been badly damaged by bombing and fighting, would become clogged with NATO peacekeeping vehicles, including armour, aid convoys and returning refugees.
"The mother of all traffic jams is what I expect, especially on the road from Skopje to Pristina," said one UN official.
With Kosovo caught between an ongoing war and a peace deal that could be locked into place at any time, UNHCR must plan for a number of contingencies in the Balkans.
One is a continuation of the Kosovo conflict that pushes even more refugees out of the province. Plans and supplies are in hand to deal with that possibility, including materials to upgrade sprawling tent camps in Macedonia and Albania before the winter.
If a peace deal is implemented, much of the humanitarian aid being stockpiled in Macedonia and Albania will be sent to Kosovo.
The top priority will be to care for the IDPs, many of whom are thought to be ill and malnourished.
At least 35,000 homes have been severely damaged, according to UNHCR estimates. Those structures will receive early attention to make at least one room weather-proof and habitable.
Water is expected to be an even bigger problem than food and medicine initially.
"We have reason to believe that many of the water sources may be damaged or destroyed. Getting water to people is going to be an urgent priority," Ms Ghedini said.