Common humanity demands that Britain should provide a haven for some of the refugees fleeing from Slobodan Milosevic. No civilised person could fail to have been moved by the suffering of the refugees, whose plight has been so starkly depicted on our television screens.

As Nato continues its "nights of fire" policy against Serb targets with missiles from air and sea forces, the need for sanctuary grows ever more urgent. A grim irony of the conflict in Kosovo is that the refugees fleeing from Milosevic's policy of ethnic cleansing are the very people the Nato action was intended to help.

A political row is bubbling over whether or not the bombing campaign has directly caused the refugee crisis or merely accelerated a dreadful process that was happening already. Whatever the case, now is not the time to bandy hot-tempered words about the causes of this human tragedy. Instead this is simply and crucially a time to act.

Initially the Government appeared reluctant to bring Kosovan refugees to Britain, and in a Sunday newspaper article yesterday Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that the earlier dispersal of refugees from Bosnia across Europe had been "a policy of despair" which meant they would probably never return home.

Such caution was echoed last night by Emma Bonino, the EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, who said: "We should not dispose people all over. We should not cooperate in any way with ethnic cleansing." While Mrs Bonino might have a cold, technical point her views will not help the awful suffering of the refugees living in what appears from the television pictures to be nothing other than a medieval hell.

Downing Street has now announced that it is ready to accept more Kosovan refugees on a temporary basis. The Government has not indicated how many refugees could be admitted, but says that "some thousands" fleeing the violence could be given shelter in the UK.

To date an estimated 370,000 refugees have fled Kosovo, a figure which testifies to the need for help.

Their plight has touched the hearts of people across North Yorkshire, and yesterday Dr David Hope, Archbishop of York, spoke for many when he made a special plea for tolerance in his televised Easter Sunday service.

Despite Dr Hope's solemn and timely words, it is possible to find hope, and to be reminded of our common humanity, in the reaction of those such as the Preston family from Pickering, who contacted the Evening Press wanting to contribute in some way.

This is one of those occasions when we feel we must do something, anything to help. One way we could help as a nation would be to welcome Kosovo refugees into Britain and try to ease their suffering, at least for now.

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