MACEDONIA: KOSOVO CRISIS: AID SHIPMENTS ARRIVE FOR REFUGEES
(4 Apr 1999) Natural Sound Aid is pouring in for the refugees stranded on the border between Kosovo and Macedonia from around the world. A number of European countries and the U-S have announced they will also take in a large number of the ethnic Albanians and give them temporary asylum until it's safe for them to return home. British troops, meanwhile, are to help with the setting up of sanctuaries for the tens of thousands of Kosovar refugees trying to get into the country. Soldiers are already constructing three camps in Macedonia as a matter of the "highest priority". A shipment of emergency relief supplies arrived at Skopje airport on Easter Sunday. The aid from the U-S Agency for International Development was flown in on a Russian airplane - likely to have been hired because of it's size. At the airport, supplies of food and blankets were loaded onto lorries to be distributed at refugee camps by NATO troops on the ground. Personnel from the Britains' Royal Air Force (R-A-F) were on hand to help with the arrival and onward movement of supplies to ease the suffering. British soldiers have been assisting U-N officials with the transport, storage and preparation of food here and in Thessaloniki, Greece. Some men also found time on Easter Sunday to observe Christian traditions normally carried out back home. As planes flew noisily overhead, one small group sang hymns in a makeshift religious setting. The British soldiers serving with NATO forces in Macedonia will now help to establish sanctuaries for the tens of thousands of Kosovar refugees trying to get into the country. Many are trapped in a no-man's land between the Yugoslav and Macedonian borders. Hungry and exhausted, the refugees arrive here by the tens of thousands each day, struggling to make sense of a war that has separated them from family and home. Seventy-thousand refugees have fled the Serbian province of Kosovo in the past 24 hours alone. Many are ending up here, in a makeshift camp in Blace, Macedonia. Macedonia has effectively closed its borders to all refugees except the most frail and those granted places in third countries. None-the-less they keep coming. Relief efforts are moving into high gear. Trucks bring rations of bread and blankets, while refugees huddle together in the could. Many have lost husbands and fathers. NATO allies are scrambling to deal with the deluge on Kosovo's borders, as more ethnic Albanians died overnight in the cold and squalor of makeshift camps. As many as 50-thousand Kosovar refugees are camped here at Blace, a border post with Kosovo about a half-hour's drive from Macedonia's capital, Skopje. Macedonia has agreed to the setting up an internationally run sanctuary that would house up to 100-thousand refugees fleeing the Kosovo crisis. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
