MACEDONIA: INTERNATIONAL AID AGENCIES TRY TO HELP THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS CAUGHT UP IN CLASHES WITH ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS

Record ID: 648222

  • Title: MACEDONIA: INTERNATIONAL AID AGENCIES TRY TO HELP THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS CAUGHT UP IN CLASHES WITH ETHNIC ALBANIAN REBELS
  • Date: 12th June 2001
  • Summary: BEDINJE, MACEDONIA (JUNE 12, 2001)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV CONVOY OF VEHICLES CARRYING AID ON ROAD TO LIPKOVO AND SLUPCANE 0.09 2. SV CONVOY VEHICLES STOPPED ON SIDE OF ROAD/ FOOD SUPPLIES IN THE BACK OF VEHICLE 0.18 3. SV AID WORKERS NEAR THEIR VEHICLE/CU OF 'ISLAMIC RELIEF' BANNER ON VEHICLE (2 SHOTS) 0.27 4. SLV AID WORKERS WAITING BESIDE THEIR VEHICLES (2 SHOTS) 0.38 5. MCU (English) UNIDENTIFIED AID WORKER SAYING: "We are trying to get into the crisis villages, into Lipkovo mostly, because there are over 15,000 people - civilians - and they have no food, no water, no nothing and that is why we are trying to get (there). Yesterday we wanted to go there but the police kept us here four hours and they said that you don't have permission to go there. That's why we are trying today, maybe we have luck to go there and to help those people because they are in a very bad situation." 1.12 6. SLV AID VEHICLES TURNED BACK BY MACEDONIAN ARMY 1.20 7. SLV AID VEHICLES TURNED BACK BY MACEDONIAN ARMY (2 SHOTS) 1.38 8. SV/SLV ICRC WORKERS/ICRC CONVOY PASSING THROUGH ARMY CHECKPOINT (2 SHOTS) 2.00 9. SLV ONE OF THE ICRC TRUCKS RETURNING 2.03 KUMANOVO, MACEDONIA (JUNE 12, 2001)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 10. SLV/TRACKING SHOT ICRC TRUCK DRIVING ALONG STREET (2 SHOTS) 2.15 11. SV PEOPLE WAITING FOR ARRIVAL OF TRUCK/ BACK OF TRUCK OPENED 2.32 12. SLV RELATIVES WAITING FOR ARRIVAL OF OTHER TRUCKS 2.35 13. LV/SV EVACUEES LIFTED FROM TRUCK (4 SHOTS) 3.16 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 27th June 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEDINJE AND KUMANOVO, MACEDONIA
  • Country: Macedonia
  • Reuters ID: LVA1HZ85795VHS14QQYJ67MIAN66
  • Story Text: International aid agencies have taken advantage of a
    temporary ceasefire by the Macedonian army to try and help
    thousands of civilians caught up in clashes with ethnic
    Albanian rebels in the northeast of the country.



    A 26-truck convoy from a range of international
    humanitarian groups queued at an army checkpoint on a road
    into the main battle zone on Tuesday (June 12), awaiting
    clearance to ferry medical kits and other supplies to
    civilians behind rebel lines.

    The food-for-water deal, facilitated by a brief ceasefire
    in a four-month-old conflict, would have marked a major
    development just days after the guerrillas threatened to shell
    Macedonia's capital and risk a full-scale civil war.

    Waiting to see if the army would let the convoy through,
    one unidentified aid worker said there were more than 15,000
    people trapped by the fighting. "They have no food, no water,
    no nothing," she told Reuters before soldiers pushed the media
    back from the checkpoint.

    In the end, the wait was in vain. Objecting to the
    presence of journalists in the convoy, demanded by the rebels
    to verify they had not cut off the water supply, the army
    turned the convoy back after a seven-hour wait in sweltering
    heat.

    Vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross
    (ICRC), the lead humanitarian group in Macedonia, had better
    luck. Their convoy was allowed to pass through the checkpoint
    after a short wait.

    Just over two hours later the first truck from the convoy
    crossed back through the checkpoint ferrying the first of 300
    civilians evacuated from the village of Otlia. The women,
    children and elderly - there were no men of fighting age among
    the evacuees - received an emotional welcome from relatives
    waiting for them on the Kumanovo side of the checkpoint.

    An ICRC spokeswomen said she expected all the refugees
    would stay with relatives in Kumanovo and Skopje.

    The break in fighting was a surprise first step back from
    the threat of all-out civil war after rebels threatened to
    shell the capital after occupying a town on the outskirts of
    Skopje.

    The government did not spell out how long its "temporary
    ceasefire" could last.

    Ethnic Albanians want an end to what they say is official
    discrimination. But meeting demands for Albanian to be made a
    second official language and for the constitution to be
    rewritten could incense the Slav majority.

    (dp/

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