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British Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, is greeted by Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubcho Georgievski at the airport in Skopje, Macedonia RELATED VIDEO: CNN's Tom Mintier reports on Blair's visit to refugees and British soldiers (May 3) Windows Media 28K 80K Refugees separated from family and friends are getting help from Albanian radio and TV stations. CNN's Nic Robertson shows how. (May 3) Windows Media 28K 80K A bread factory in Albania has stepped up production in order to help feed the Kosovo refugees. CNN's Rusty Dornin takes a tour. (May 3) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Refugees arrive at the Albanian border night and day; the greetings and assistance they receive varies by their arrival time. CNN's Jane Arraf reports. (May 3) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY: Latest from Kosovo The Kosovo refugees Images of NATO bomb attack on Serbian TV headquarters The Serbs and Kosovo  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  ALSO: Jackson urges Clinton to call Milosevic Chernomyrdin: U.S., Russia 'closer' to Kosovo solution  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 3, 1999
Web posted at: 2:40 p.m. EDT (1840 GMT)

In this story: Looking for relief RELATED STORIES, SITES

STENKOVEC, Macedonia (CNN) -- Hundreds of ethnic Albanians swarmed around British leader Tony Blair on Monday, chanting the prime minister's name as he walked through Macedonia's largest camp for Kosovo refugees.

After the walkthrough, Blair announced that Britain would double its aid money for Macedonia from 20 million to 40 million pounds and increase the number of refugees it will take in.

"That commitment is total," Blair told reporters. "This is not a battle for NATO. This is not a battle for territory. It is a battle for humanity. It is a just cause."

More than 50,000 refugees are crammed with no electricity and little sanitation into the camps at Stenkovec. And the flood of refugees notched higher overnight, as another 6,000 people arrived at the border near Blace to join the 5,000 already waiting in holding camps.

"The camps were never built for that sort of number on a long-term basis," British Brigadier Tim Cross, commander of the U.K. National Support Element, said Monday during a British Defense Ministry briefing. "They are in fact at about double capacity."

The overcrowded conditions mean that refugees spend much of their days standing in line for water, food and latrines, and to apply for temporary asylum outside the region. Recent arrivals sleep outside, where space constraints won't allow more tents.

But conditions are better than those they left behind in Kosovo, many of the refugees say. The Serbs, some say, waged a scorched earth campaign in parts of Kosovo.

"They didn't leave a soul living, not even one cow," said Xheumal Xhemaili from the village of Bajcina. "There was the smell of death everywhere."

Overall, Macedonia currently houses about 80,000 refugees, with another 90,000 living with ethnic kin outside the camps.

The ever-rising increase in the refugee population worries the Macedonian government -- which fears the strain will destroy Macedonia's economy and disrupt the country's own ethnic mix.

"There is a very good fast-flowing stream for example through (Stenkovec), but that stream will begin to dry up as the summer comes," said Cross, "and therefore progressing and moving on in areas like water and sanitation is very important."

To help ease the pressure, NATO announced Monday that it would begin building camps in Albania to take up to 60,000 refugees from Macedonia.

"It would be a limited number, but at least a gesture of intent for the Macedonian government to show that the Albanian government is willing to take people," said British Lt. Gen. John Reith, commander of the NATO Albania Force for Humanitarian Assistance (AFOR).

But Albania faces its own refugee crisis, with ethnic Albanians pouring across the Yugoslav border by night and by day.

And the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has asked other countries to speed up airlifts of refugees to temporary homes abroad. Nearly 25,000 ethnic Albanians have been taken from the region to date.

"We need more people evacuated immediately to Europe as well as to the other regional countries," said spokeswoman Paula Ghedini. "In the camps, it's only a matter of hours or days before we have epidemics that can become full-blown health hazards."

Correspondents Jane Arraf and Tom Mintier and Reuters contributed to this report.

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