VARIOUS: AS THOUSANDS OF ETHNIC ALBANIAN REFUGEES POUR OUT OF KOSOVO APPEARS GO OUT TO INTERNATIONAL RELIEF AGENCIES

Record ID: 505185

  • Title: VARIOUS: AS THOUSANDS OF ETHNIC ALBANIAN REFUGEES POUR OUT OF KOSOVO APPEARS GO OUT TO INTERNATIONAL RELIEF AGENCIES
  • Date: 2nd April 1999
  • Summary: BLACE, MACEDONIA (APRIL 2, 1999) (REUTERS) LV PAN REFUGEES CAMPED OUT IN A FIELD NEAR THE BORDER MV MACEDONIAN POLICE AND REFUGEES IN FIELD SCU REFUGEES SCU THE FEET OF REFUGEES STANDING IN MUD (2 SHOTS) SLV REFUGEE UP A TREE COLLECTING FIREWOOD (2 SHOTS) SCU MAN CARRYING FIREWOOD/MV REFUGEES BY CAMP FIRES (3 SHOTS) SCU WOMAN BREASTFEEDING BABY SLV REFUGEES
  • Embargoed: 17th April 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: STANSTEAD, BISTON, UNITED KINGDOM, BLACE, BLACE, SKOPJE,MACEDONIA, MORINA, ALBANIAN-YUGOSLAV BORDER, KOSOVO-MONTENEGRO BORDER
  • City:
  • Country: Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of United Kingdom
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA5N23UM40WDDIX7MHTOL6EWF2D
  • Story Text: As thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees continued to pour out of Kosovo into neighbouring Macedonia and Albania, both countries signalled desperately that they were being overwhelmed and urged that the international relief operation launched several days ago be accelerated.
    Vital supplies were flown in to Macedonia on Friday (April 2) to try to help the thousands of refugees who have been flooding to the country's border with Kosovo.
    The contribution of Oxfam, one of the largest relief agencies in the world, was twenty tonnes of clean water for the thirsty, exhausted dispossessed.This basic but priceless commodity was packed in crates on Thursday for transportation from London's Stanstead airport on Friday.
    Macedonia said on Friday that the number of refugees arriving from Kosovo had exceeded what it could handle and was threatening stability and public order.By Thursday 32,000 Kosovans had entered the country with about 15,000 still waiting to come in.
    The Macedonian government called on the international community to move with more speed to help deal with the crisis.
    But as far as the refugees were concerned, they were safe.
    Countless people said they had undergone brutal treatment at the hands of the Serbs.On Thursday, Serb troops allegedly drove many people from their homes and forced them at gunpoint to board packed trains.They were then forced to trudge the final few miles to the border between the railway tracks after Serbian forces had warned them that the area around the line was mined.
    The refugees, many of them elderly and handicapped, wept and some collapsed as they made their way to safety.It took more than an hour for the long line of frightened people to trickle into Macedonia.Their first plea was "water!"
    Some half a million people are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo in the past year, many of them since Yugoslav forces stepped up what the West calls "ethnic cleansing" of ethnic Albanians after NATO launched continuous air attacks last week.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register