Aid officials are concerned for the safety of ethnic Albanians at the hands of Serb forces RELATED VIDEO CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on the conditions in Kukes, Albania (April 6) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Mike Hanna reports on how people are coping in a refugee camp in Montenegro (Tuesday, April 6) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Yugoslavia, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: Of burning flags and rock concerts: Protesting the NATO strikes Kosovo Refugees The refugee children of Kosovo Belgrade cruise missile strike The Serbs and Kosovo  ALSO: Rations make their way to displaced Kosovars Kosovar refugee wants to go back home NATO rejects cease-fire, resumes bombing Yugoslavia Russian aid both blessed and cursed Diplomatic efforts continue despite cease-fire rejection Airstrikes hit home in a small Serbian town Pentagon: Yugoslavia considers captured soldiers POWs  MAPS NATO officials describe attacks from day one through day thirteen

In this story: Macedonia lashes out at West Some relief at Brazda tent city Tents go up in Kukes More refugees flown to Turkey U.N. hosts donor conference RELATED STORIES, SITES

April 7, 1999
Web posted at: 5:00 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT)

BLACE, Macedonia (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians waiting to cross into Macedonia were turned back forcibly by Serbian authorities Tuesday and told to return to their villages, the Macedonian government said.

Relief officials expressed concern that Serbian forces might harm the ethnic Albanians or use them as human shields to discourage NATO airstrikes.

The report could not be independently verified, but other sources in contact with Kosovo Albanians supported the Macedonian officials' account.

Across the border in Macedonia, 65,000 refugees were stuck behind barbed wire in a filthy no man's land on the Macedonian border. Aid officials told CNN that at least 50 refugees had died there so far.

Macedonian border guards at the Blace camp were seen wearing face masks against the stench of thousands of people who have been forced to live for a week in extremely unhealthy and unsanitary conditions, after being pushed out of Kosovo by what the West says is an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing.

U.N. aid officials said that only the Macedonian Red Cross was being allowed access to Blace, a border post about half an hour's drive from the capital, Skopje.

The international humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders on Tuesday strongly criticized the Macedonian authorities for the humanitarian disaster and demanded immediate access to Blace, pointing to the need of urgent medical and sanitation supplies and shelter.

Macedonia lashes out at NATO

But Macedonian Prime Minister Lupco Georgievski in turn lashed out at the West, saying NATO had attacked neighboring Serbia and then walked away from the problem of refugees.

"The people in Brussels (NATO headquarters) started the war and left for Easter holidays," he told a news conference. "They left the problem for Macedonia."

The Macedonian authorities said they had registered 81,000 refugees and that 130,000 were in the country when illegal entries were counted.

About a third of Macedonians are ethnic Albanians and Skopje fears that an even greater refugee influx could destabilize the nation.

Some relief at Brazda tent city

A refugee in Blace

In a more positive development in the tragic refugee story, thousands of the Blace refugees have now been transported to a tent city at Brazda, near Blace.

British officials said that camp could accommodate a total of 60,000 people. A NATO spokesman in Brussels said Tuesday that six other tent cities were being set up by alliance troops, who were also providing food and water, medical aid and beds and blankets.

The U.N. refugee agency said more than 430,000 refugees had left Kosovo in the past twelve days. About 262,000 of them were in Albania, 120,000 in Macedonia and 36,700 in Montenegro. About 7,900 sought refuge in Bosnia-Herzegovina and 6,000 in Turkey, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Refugee numbers continue to swell

Tents go up in Kukes

In Albania, officials from Greece and Italy on Tuesday were setting up tent cities for about 100,000 refugees in Kukes, a northern town close to the border.

Bread rations were again transported from the capital Tirana to Kukes Tuesday. According to the U.N.'s World Food Program, about 80 percent of refugees at the border have now been provided with food packets.

NATO said it was helping set up three tent cities in the region and would use helicopters to fly in food and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, CNN has confirmed that the Yugoslav army has closed the key entry point into Albania, effectively locking thousands of ethnic Albanian Kosovars inside Yugoslavia.

The city of Morina has been the main entry point to Albania for over 200,000 Kosovoars in the last two weeks who say they were forced from their homes by Serb-led Yugoslav forces.

It was not immediately clear whether those left on the Yugoslav side of the border would be allowed to remain along the frontier.

More refugees flown to Turkey

Western nations on Tuesday flew about 3,000 more Kosovo Albanians from Macedonia to temporary homes in Turkey as part of an international airlift that is expected to eventually evacuate tens of thousands of others from the Balkan crisis region.

Turkey has strong historical and religious ties with the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo and the province's small Turkish minority, dating back to the Ottoman Empire's rule of the Balkans.

Turkey has said it will accept 20,000 refugees. The first group arrived at Corlu in western Turkey on Monday and were taken to a tent city near the town of Kirklareli, close to the Bulgarian border, according to the Turkish state-run Anatolian news agency.

The refugees were only told where they would be taken shortly before they boarded the plane. Some ethnic Albanians were clearly distressed, saying they had been separated from their families.

UNHCR holds donor conference

The UNHCR, meanwhile, was chairing a 56-nation donor conference in Geneva to decide which countries could give aid to the Kosovo refugees and how many refugees each nation could take in.

UNHCR chief Sadako Ogata said the exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was a "forced, planned and directed" evacuation masterminded by the Serb-led Yugoslav government of President Slobodan Milosevic.

She reiterated a call to countries to take in Kosovo refugees "on an exceptional and temporary basis."

Ogata told the Geneva donor conference, which also includes 30 humanitarian organizations, that a "prolonged period of sustained assistance" was needed.

"Solutions, for the overwhelming majority, mean returning to their homes as soon as possible," she said.

The United States said Tuesday it would temporarily house 20,000 Kosovo refugees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And Sweden and Canada announced Tuesday they would take in 5,000 refugees, joining a number of European nations that have already pledged to take in refugees.

NATO and European Union nations were planning on accommodating about 100,000 refugees from Kosovo for a limited period.

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