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World - Europe

Macedonians move more refugees to NATO-run camps

tent
Refugees sit outside tents at a new camp in Brazda, Macedonia, one of many set up by NATO

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InteractiveIMAGE GALLERY:
Of burning flags and rock concerts:

Protesting the NATO strikes

Belgrade cruise missile strike

The Serbs and Kosovo
 ALSO
Deal afoot to free captured U.S. soldiers?

NATO defies Yugoslav cease-fire with more bombing

NATO keeps up diplomatic pressure despite overtures from Belgrade

Kosovar refugee wants to go back home

Russian aid both blessed and cursed

Diplomatic efforts continue despite cease-fire rejection

 MESSAGE BOARD
Crisis in Kosovo
 MAPS
NATO officials describe attacks from day one through day thirteen
 

Yugoslavia closes border with Albania, Macedonia

April 7, 1999
Web posted at: 9:22 a.m. EDT (1322 GMT)


In this story:

Refugees can choose destinations

Yugoslavia closes borders

More food aid sought

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon



STENKOVEC, Macedonia (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of Kosovo refugees who had been living under squalid conditions in a Macedonian camp in Blace were moved to a new NATO tent city in Stenkovec, where they received urgently needed food and medical attention Wednesday.

Macedonia had been busing refugees out of the teeming Blace camp for days, but the pace was sharply stepped up late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

NATO officials told CNN that between 25,000 and 30,000 ethnic Albanians were moved overnight from Blace to Stenkovec, south of Macedonia's border with Kosovo. The refugees received a hot meal immediately after they arrived, NATO officials told CNN.

As the humanitarian situation for those refugees improved, Yugoslavia authorities reportedly closed its borders with Macedonia and Albania Wednesday, preventing thousands more from leaving the Serb province.

Refugees can choose destinations

A NATO official also said displaced ethnic Albanians would no longer be separated from their families or sent to other countries against their will.

Macedonia's decision to send hundreds of refugees to Turkey without their consent or without knowing where they were headed provoked concern among international aid groups.

A British NATO spokesman at Stenkovec said the U.N. refugee agency and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had set up a registration system and would post signs such as "if you want to go to Germany come here."

Germany is among several NATO and European nations that have pledged to take in tens of thousands of refugees from Kosovo.

Many refugees, however, say they want to stay in the region.

International aid agencies had strongly criticized the Macedonian authorities for using bureaucracy to slow down the influx of refugees from Kosovo.

But Macedonian Prime Minister Llubco Georgievski on Tuesday lashed out at NATO, saying the alliance had ignored warnings that airstrikes on Yugoslavia could trigger a humanitarian crisis.

Macedonia, flooded with more than 130,000 refugees from Kosovo, said it could not take in more than 20,000, because of fears they could destabilize the nation's ethnic balance and lead to calls for Albanian autonomy in the country of 2.2 million.

Refugees were evacuated from this camp in Blace, Macedonia  

Yugoslavia closes borders

The latest reports from Macedonia suggested Wednesday that Yugoslav authorities had closed the border, preventing thousands of would-be refugees from leaving the embattled Kosovo province.

Yugoslavia also closed the main border crossing from Kosovo into Albania early Wednesday. Morina has been the main entry point for at least 280,000 Kosovars who have come to Albania in the last two weeks after being driven from their homes by Serb forces in what NATO has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

The authorities told the ethnic Albanians it was safe for them to return home, the OSCE said. The OSCE said its monitors at the border reported that refugees were still lined up on the Yugoslav side.

The organization also reported that some 10,000 ethnic Albanians from Macedonia had arrived in southeastern Albania overnight in circumstances that remained unclear.

Many of the refugees that escaped to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro told CNN correspondents that Serb forces forced them from their homes, seized all their belongings and money, and randomly executed some ethnic Albanians.

bread
Two young boys from Kosovo reach for loaves of bread  

More food aid sought

The U.N.'s World Food Program said on Wednesday it had appealed to donor nations for a further $24.1 million "to save lives of Kosovar refugees" in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, bringing to $46.3 million the total cost of its aid operations in the region.

WFP said that if the number of refugees fleeing the violence in Kosovo should rise to more than 650,000, the organization would need even more money.

The U.N. refugee agency has said about 360,000 people have left Kosovo since NATO bombing began on March 24.

Correspondents Mathew Chance and Catherine Bond contributed to this report.
RELATED STORIES:
Macedonians move more refugees to NATO-run camps

NATO defies Yugoslav cease-fire with more bombing
April 7, 1999
NATO rejects cease-fire, resumes bombing Yugoslavia
April 6, 1999
NATO rejects Yugoslav unilateral cease-fire offer
April 6, 1999
Airstrikes hit home in a small Serbian town
April 6, 1999
Support for ground troops swells in Congress
April 4, 1999
Russian anger at NATO attacks goes deeper than 'Slavic brotherhood'
April 4, 1999
U.N.: Kosovo refugee flood could reach 1 million
April 4, 1999

RELATED SITES:
Extensive list of Kosovo-related sites
  • Kosovo

Yugoslavia:
  • Federal Republic of Yugoslavia official site
      • Kesovo and Metohija facts
  • Serbia Ministry of Information
  • Serbia Now! News


Kosovo:
  • Kosova Crisis Center
  • Kosovo - from Albanian.com

Military:
  • NATO official site
  • BosniaLINK - U.S. Dept. of Defense
  • U.S. Navy images from Operation Allied Force
  • U.K. Ministry of Defence - Kosovo news
  • U.K. Royal Air Force - Kosovo news
  • Jane's Defence - Kosovo Crisis

Relief:
  • Unicef USA
  • Doctors Without Borders
  • World Vision
  • CARE: The Kosovo Crisis
  • InterAction
  • International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
  • International Committee of the Red Cross
  • Disaster Relief from DisasterRelief.org
  • Catholic Relief Services
  • Kosovo Relief
  • ReliefWeb: Home page


Media:
  • Independent Yugoslav radio stations B92
  • Institute for War and Peace Reporting
  • United States Information Agency - Kosovo Crisis

Other:
  • 1997 view of Kosovo from space - Eurimage
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