ALBANIA/ MACEDONIA: NATO INTENSIFY ATTACKS CLOSE TO KOSOVO- ALBANIA BORDER/ KOSOVAR ALBANIAN LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA VISITS STENKOVEC REFUGEE CAMP
Record ID:
355151
ALBANIA/ MACEDONIA: NATO INTENSIFY ATTACKS CLOSE TO KOSOVO- ALBANIA BORDER/ KOSOVAR ALBANIAN LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA VISITS STENKOVEC REFUGEE CAMP
- Title: ALBANIA/ MACEDONIA: NATO INTENSIFY ATTACKS CLOSE TO KOSOVO- ALBANIA BORDER/ KOSOVAR ALBANIAN LEADER IBRAHIM RUGOVA VISITS STENKOVEC REFUGEE CAMP
- Date: 26th May 1999
- Summary: NEAR MORINA CROSSING, ALBANIA (MAY 26, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. MV ALBANIAN GUARDS AT THE MORINA CROSSING POINT WITH CROSSING GATES SHUT 0.06 2. GV AIRCRAFT DROPPING FLARES, FLARES IN THE SKY 0.14 3. SV VILLAGERS WATCHING 0.16 4. GV SHELLS EXPLODING 0.38 5. LV TANK GOING PAST A BUNKER 0.45 6. VARIOUS OF TANKS DRIVING IN THE FIEL
- Embargoed: 10th June 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KUKES, MORINA CROSSING AND NEAR, ALBANIA/ BLACE, STENKOVEC CAMP, SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
- City:
- Country: Macedonia Albania
- Reuters ID: LVA7X0NELQCD1FX9Q4TTFW78LIH5
- Story Text: NATO planes have struck at a string of targets just
behind the major border crossing between Albania and Kosovo in
one of the most intensive attacks in the area to date.
Earlier on Wednesday, three Albanian villages near the
crossing used by refugees fleeing Kosovo were shelled from
Yugoslav territory.
The renewed attacks adds increased urgency to NATO's
efforts to move 33,000 refugees out of camps around the town
of Kukes -- just 15 km (nine miles) south of Morina -- to
safer sites in central and southern Albania.
Witnesses saw at least eight explosions on the hills
surrounding the Morina border crossing, through which several
hundred thousand refugees have passed since the start of NATO
bombing on March 24.
Flashes of flame could be seen and clouds of black smoke
rose into the sky.
According to local police from the other side of the
border, repeated and intensive small-arms fire could be heard
as Yugoslav troops clashed with members of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA).
Flak-jacketed police ran for cover as the shooting
intensified.Journalists who had been at the border were
ushered back to safer positions.
On the Albanian side of the border, tanks took up
positions and dug in as a precaution.
Observers from the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who can monitor up to 10 km (six
miles) inside Kosovo from vantage points on the Albanian
border, said many Serb soldiers dressed in battle gear had
been moved up close to the border behind Morina.
The NATO bombings followed a particularly intensive night
of fighting between Yugoslav troops and KLA guerrillas.
Witnesses at the border reported heavy small-arms and
mortar fire on the Yugoslav side for two hours from 0200 GMT
and sporadic artillery fire from 0600 GMT.
About 150 refugees crossed the border checkpoint where
small-arms fire and mortar shelling were seen around 1230 GMT.
The OSCE observer said fighting was particularly heavy
around the northern Albanian border village of Pogaj, an area
which came under Yugoslav tank and artillery fire.
Areas around the villages of Cehani and Vlahani also drew
Yugoslav fire.
OSCE sources quoted Albanian border police as saying women
and children had been evacuated from Pogaj.The renewed
violence was bound to raise pressure on more than 80,000
Kosovo refugees in the northern town of Kukes to move on.
British General Sir John Reith visited Kukes on Wednesday
(May 26) to give a boost to a campaign aimed at moving 33,000
refugees from vulnerable camps further south.
On his arrival in Kukes Reith said that the intention was
not to evacuate all the refugees in the area but only those
who are currently living in tented camps.
He added that the main problems were the shortage of water
and the threat from Serb artillery.
"Canvas doesn't protect you from shrapnel," Reith said.
Meanwhile, in a tented camp nearby, scores of ethnic
Albanian children chased an aid van full of food as it entered
their camp.They formed noisy lines as they waited patiently
for their daily rations.
Action Against Hunger aid workers measured the children's
biceps and arms to check that they were not undernourished.
In Macedonia, thousands of Kosovo refugees poured into the
country overnight in a renewed exodus that threatened more
strain on the country's overcrowded camps and its willingness
to accept the human flood.
United Nations refugee agency workers at the Blace
crossing point said more than 6,000 ethnic Albanians had
entered the country between early evening on Tuesday and early
morning Wednesday and thousands more may be waiting on the
Serbian side.
Almost 30,000 people have fled Kosovo to Macedonia since
Sunday in what the UNHCR said might be a last attempt by
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to complete ethnic
cleansing in the region.
Ibrahim Rugova, the political leader of the Kosovar
Albanians, has been given a hero's reception during a visit to
one of the sprawling refugee camps in Macedonia.
The refugees of Stenkovec camp on the outskirts of the
Macedonian capital Skopje chanted Rugova's name as he arrived
on Wednesday (May 26) for a morale-boosting visit.
The thousands of ehtnic Albanians packed into the camp are
desperate to return home to Kosovo, but not until Serb forces
have been withdrawn or NATO sends in ground troops.
Rugova - who spent some time under house arrest in the
Kosovo capital Pristina when NATO began its air strikes on
Yugoslavia more than two months ago - says without an
international presence in Kosovo it will be impossible for the
refugees to go back.
Speaking after a later meeting with members of Macedonia's
Liberal Democratic Party, Rugova said his first objective now
was to work to return the refugees to Kosovo and to bring an
international and NATO force there.
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