MACEDONIA: FIGHTING BETWEEN MACEDONIAN ARMY FORCES AND ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERRILLAS PREVENT RED CROSS MEDICAL TEAM FROM REACHING SHELLED VILLAGES

Record ID: 376137

  • Title: MACEDONIA: FIGHTING BETWEEN MACEDONIAN ARMY FORCES AND ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERRILLAS PREVENT RED CROSS MEDICAL TEAM FROM REACHING SHELLED VILLAGES
  • Date: 25th May 2001
  • Summary: NEAR VAKCINCE, MACEDONIA (MAY 25, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. LV MACEDONIAN SOLDIERS RUNNING THROUGH A FIELD 0.15 2. LV OF SOLDIERS RUNNING THROUGH A FIELD 0.30 3. LV MACEDONIAN SOLDIERS TAKING COVER, TANKS FIRING, SMOKE RISING 0.37 4. LV HOUSE BEING SHELLED 0.45 5. LV MACEDONIAN SOLDIERS RUNNING THROUGH FIELD 0.53 6. LV OF SMOKE RISING FROM THE VILLAGE (AUDIO GUNFIRE) (3 SHOTS) 1.06 7. SLV HELICOPTER GUNSHIPS FLYING 1.12 8. LV HELICOPTER GUNSHIP FIRING 1.33 9. LV OF HELICOPTER GUNSHIP ATTRACTING GROUND FIRE 1.49 10. LV OF HELICOPTER GUNSHIP (AUDIO OF ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN)/JOURNALIST SHOUTING "TAKE COVER" 1.56 11. LV OF VILLAGE, SMOKE RISING 2.01 12. LV TANK FIRING 2.06 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEAR VAKCINCE, MACEDONIA
  • Country: Macedonia
  • Reuters ID: LVADB3KNLKNT2S2J9BI43EKU4GXJ
  • Story Text: Fighting between Macedonian army forces and ethnic
    Albanian guerrillas prevented Red Cross medical teams from
    reaching shelled villages on Friday where civilians have been
    reported killed and injured.



    About 2,000 villagers were reported by the U.N.

    refugee agency to have fled north into Serbia on Thursday (May
    24) after the army launched an offensive, and smaller groups
    were evacuated by Macedonian police.

    But many more men, women and children are thought to be
    still sheltering in their homes, afraid to move, with the Red
    Cross unable to contact them.

    The army resumed shelling of a cluster of rebel-held
    villages in northeastern Macedonia on Friday and two armoured
    helicopter gunships swooped in to attack Vakcince, drawing
    some ground fire, a Reuters crew near the scene said.

    One man who left Vakcince on Thursday after the first wave
    of the army offensive said the village was still full of
    civilians, and that there were "many wounded".

    The villages have been occupied by guerrillas and under
    attack by government forces for three weeks.

    An army spokesman astonished reporters at his regular
    briefing on Thursday by claiming, in the face of days of
    eyewitness reports and reels of video evidence, that no houses
    had been shelled.

    According to the guerrillas, eight civilians had been
    killed in the previous three weeks. Most civilians keep to
    their basements and cellars when there is fighting.

    A high civilian toll could tip the balance towards the
    breakup of a crisis-hit coalition that is holding the
    ethnically mixed republic together and staving off the threat
    of a civil war that could enflame the Balkans.


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