with great sadness

[kapi@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject:  With Great Sadness

Many of you knew or had worked with Refugees International?s European
Representative, Yvette Pierpaoli, over the past few years.  It is with great
sadness that we tell you of her death yesterday.  Yvette, along with two of
RI?s Board Members, died in an automobile accident in Albania en route to the
refugee camps there.  Following is RI?s press release.

Mary Pack
Burma Project Director



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REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL

April 19, 1999

It is with deep pain that we must confirm the deaths of David B. McCall, his
wife Penny McCall and Yvette Pierpaoli in a car accident Sunday on the road
heading towards Kukes, Albania.  Their Albanian driver was also killed.  David
and Penny were Board Members of Refugees International, and Yvette was RI?s
European Representative.  The three were in Albania on humanitarian assessment
mission.  They were heading from Tirana, the capital, to Kukes, the primary
reception point for Kosovar refugees, when their car apparently slid of the
mountain road in bad weather.

David, Penny, and Yvette gave their lives for refugees they never met, but for
whom they cared deeply.  Refugees International is an advocacy organization
which seeks to identity failures or gaps in the refugee protection and
assistance system and then presses for corrective action.  David, Penny and
Yvette had made numerous such missions in the past, including a humanitarian
assessment mission to Albania last June.  This time, a part of their mission
was to explore the possibility of providing region-wide help through radio
broadcasts to refugees seeking to locate missing family members.  The
widespread separation of families is a problem with profound human
consequences, and David, Penny, and Yvette wanted it solved as quickly as
possible.  It was not the first time these three took matters into their won
hands for refugees around the world.  David, Penny and Yvette personally
brought water pumps, sought to improve the system for clearing land mines and
provided basic assistance for refugees in Thailand, Cambodia, and numerous
countries in Africa.  Their humanity was deep, abiding and selfless, and
inspired us all.  We will miss them terribly.


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