For years we have watched the horrors unfold in the Balkans. From our perspective in prosperous, untroubled North and East Yorkshire, it seemed like a world away.

The conflict came closer to home when British airmen were despatched to bomb former Yugoslavia as part of the Nato force. And as the full scale of the refugee crisis emerged, local people responded with great generosity, raising thousands of pounds for aid agency Unicef.

Yet distance still lent detachment. This sort of nightmare does not happen here; those shocked and exhausted Kosovan refugees we see on the television night after night are not like us.

And yet they are exactly like us. They were living successful, happy lives. They were earning a living as solicitors, nurses, postmen. They were bringing up families, and coping with all the domestic problems that all families face.

Then the normal lives of these ordinary people were plunged into utter turmoil.

Everything they valued was destroyed. Loved ones were murdered. Homes were ransacked and burned. Families were forced at gunpoint to flee, abandoning their possessions, unsure of where or when this living hell would end.

At least 80 Kosovars will find that it ends in York in the next few weeks. City of York Council chiefs are meeting with other agencies to prepare homes for the refugees.

It is up to all of us to make our new guests feel welcome. Until now, we have been left to impotently witness the terror caused by the Balkan conflict. Now at last we have a chance to do something positive.

People in York and North Yorkshire have a reputation for being insular. We look after our own, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But this is also a prosperous and wealthy region. We have an obligation to help these traumatised families. And we should feel delighted to be given the opportunity.

There will be some cynics who grumble that the Kosovars will want to stay once they have become accustomed to life in York. As yet we do not know how long they will be our guests. But we can be sure that they will go home as soon as it is safe.

To these people, York is an alien environment with a language they do not understand. It is only natural that they will strive to return home at the earliest opportunity, however comfortable we make their stay.

York welcomes thousands of people from across the world every year in the name of tourism. Let us now welcome the Kosovars in the name of humanity.

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