`Open' border admits three families

Just 25 Kosovan refugees arrived in Macedonia yesterday, in what is believed to be the lowest number to enter that country in any one day since the NATO bombing campaign began on March 24th. It is unclear why only three families were allowed through yesterday, but United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) personnel said they had "lots of deutschmarks".

Macedonian officials said yesterday that it would only let Kosovo refugees in at the rate less impoverished countries airlifted them out. Four thousand ethnic Albanians were reported stranded in Yugoslav territory as a result. In a series of statements and counter-statements, government officials yesterday denied that the country's borders had been closed on Wednesday, contrary to reports from the UNHCR. The officials accused the international community of not caring enough about the refugees, or about Macedonia, and said the UNHCR was lying.

Then, following a meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Pavle Trajanov, yesterday, UNHCR officials accepted that the country's borders had not been closed.

Mr Trajanov said the "incident" at the border on Wednesday evening was regrettable and based on confusion, to do with the capacity of the country's camps. It was believed there was no more room, he was quoted by UNHCR sources as saying.

However, at a press conference yesterday morning, Ms Paula Ghedini, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, had said that on Wednesday at about 5.30 p.m. personnel from the agency had witnessed two truckloads of Macedonian reserve police arrive in the no man's land area at the Blace crossing and physically force about 1,000 people back to Kosovo. The refugees were then seen by the UNHCR personnel being forced back over the Kosovan border by Serb police, she said.

At a press conference in government buildings in Skopje yesterday afternoon Macedonia's deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Boris Trajkovs, said the country's borders had not been and never were closed and that no refugees had been turned back on Wednesday.