MACEDONIA: MACEDONIAN FORCES CONTINUE TO POUND AREA NEAR KUMANOVO WHERE ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS HAVE KILLED SEVERAL OF THEIR SOLDIERS

Record ID: 648134

  • Title: MACEDONIA: MACEDONIAN FORCES CONTINUE TO POUND AREA NEAR KUMANOVO WHERE ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS HAVE KILLED SEVERAL OF THEIR SOLDIERS
  • Date: 3rd May 2001
  • Summary: (U1) VAKCINCE, NEAR KUMANOVO, MACEDONIA (MAY 3, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: SMOKE RISING FROM VILLAGE HIT BY MACENONIAN FORCES 0.05 2. GV: DUSK HANGING OVER THE AREA; PEOPLE FIRING IN FOREGROUND 0.30 3. LV: SHELL HITS SUSPECTED REBEL ETHNIC ALBANIAN POSITIONS 0.41 4. VARIOUS OF AREA WITH AUDIO OF LOUD EXPLOSIONS (2 SHOTS) 0.56 5. LV: SMOKE RISING FROM THE HOUSES IN THE HILLS AS DARKNESS FALLS 1.03 6. GV: MORE OF SMOKE FROM HOUSES 1.11 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VAKCINCE, NEAR KUMANOVO, MACEDONIA
  • Country: Macedonia
  • Reuters ID: LVABJB6O24BGT21IAC0IY0RLBABD
  • Story Text: As dusk fell on Vakcince, Macedonian forces continued
    to unleash their artillery fire in an area where ethnic
    Albanian rebels had killed several of their soldiers.


    Macedonian forces earlier attacked suspected rebel
    Ethnic Albanian positions with helicopter gunships and
    artillery fire in the hills near Vakcince, northeast of the
    capital Skopje.

    Two heavily-armed, Soviet-built Mi-24 helicopters circled
    over the village of Vakcince, northeast of the capital Skopje,
    firing rockets at houses and a nearby forest in mid-afternoon.

    Booming artillery shells exploded inside the hamlet. Smoke
    and flames billowed up from houses and burning trees.

    Later in the day a Reuters reporter in the area, around
    the town of Kumanovo, saw smoke from three villages. An
    armoured personnel carrier (APC) was parked on the outskirts
    of Vakcince.

    Thick smoke rose into the clear sky from several houses
    and a distant thump, apparently of mortar fire, could be heard
    at dusk on Thursday (May 3).

    The latest violence marked a further deterioration of the
    security situation in Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian
    guerrillas launched an insurgency earlier this year which has
    prompted international fears of another Balkan war.

    NATO Secretary-General George Robertson warned that
    renewed fighting in Macedonia could spark a bloodbath and
    called on its people to isolate ethnic Albanian guerrillas in
    the former Yugoslav republic.

    The United States condemned two killings and a kidnapping
    of Macedonian soldiers by what it called ethnic Albanian
    extremists near the border with Serbia.

    Macedonian officials had appealed to people to leave
    villages near Kumanovo prior to the assault. They declared a
    night curfew.

    The Defence Ministry said Macedonian forces had started an
    operation to drive out rebels from the area after two
    Macedonian soldiers were killed and another captured.


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