April 28, 1999
Web posted at: 1:46 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT)

In this story: 'A pattern of trauma' RELATED STORIES, SITES

BLACE, Macedonia (CNN) -- As many as 4,000 more refugees lined up to cross from the strife-torn Serbian province of Kosovo into Macedonia on Wednesday, as U.N. relief workers warned that the country's refugee camps were overflowing.

"Blace is full," said Ron Redmond, part of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees staff in Macedonia.

As many as 5,000 refugees passed through Blace on Tuesday, following an influx of 3,500 on Monday, and aid officials warned that overcrowding in the refugee camps could lead to unrest, perhaps rioting.

At Stenkovec, where as many as 40,000 refugees are awaiting transfer away from the border, aid workers say the camps have exceeded their capacity. The need for more water and sanitation facilities is a major problem.

Macedonian officials have given the go ahead for UNHCR to start building one of three additional refugee camps it has requested.

One family took turns pushing their 62-year-old relative in a wheelbarrow

The new camp could be in service as early as Friday, and will hold about 10,000 people, relief workers told CNN.

Nearly 2,000 more refugees also crossed into Albania on Wednesday, bringing with them more stories of Serb reprisals against Kosovo's majority-Albanian population. Many of the refugees had been on the move for days, with some families carrying their elderly members in wheelbarrows across the border.

U.N. officials say the accounts refugees bring with them are increasingly disturbing. They include stories of executions, as well as of men forced to dig trenches and lay mines or donate blood for Serb forces.

As NATO's air war against Yugoslavia continues, relief workers say, the Serbs are making ethnic Albanians pay an ever increasing price.

Ajmal Khybari, a UNHCR official at the Morina border crossing in Albania, said many of the refugees show signs of mistreatment consistent with "a pattern of trauma."

Red Cross officials set up boards with names to help families search for missing relatives

"We have seen some of them who have been wounded and some of them have been brutally tortured," Khybari said. "There were wounds on their faces. Some had fractured bones in their limbs."

Meanwhile, France's ambassador to Macedonia called for a "humanitarian corridor" to help refugees flee from Kosovo into Albania on Wednesday, and said Macedonian camps were at the saturation point.

Jacques Huntzinger told French television that there was a need for a "transit, with the agreement of governments, toward the Albanian border."

Correspondents Bill Hemmer and Jane Arraf contributed to this report.

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