Kumanovo / MACEDONIA ( RNN Correspondent ), September the 29th, 1999
Macedonia changed its mind Tuesday and decided to allow 500 Roma fleeing Kosovo into the Balkan country after they had been stranded at the border for almost a week.
The government had earlier refused them entry, saying NATO peacekeepers should ensure their safety in the province.
"We made an exception for these people, with a clear message to the UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) that we are doing this for the last time," Prime Minister Ljubco Georgijevski told a news conference.
The Roma National Congress in Macedonia and all the Member Organizations had exerted strong pressure on the government to provide shelter to their ethnic kind from Kosovo. There are about 55,000 Roma in Macedonia out of a total population of about two million.
The refugees will be accommodated in a camp in Macedonia.
They decided to leave Kosovo last week fearing revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians who accuse many of them of siding with Serbs during the Kosovo conflict earlier this year.
Their homes destroyed, they had stayed in a camp in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, for three months before deciding to leave for Macedonia.
Since the Kosovo war ended more than three months ago, about 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have fled Kosovo. There are already more than 7.000 Roma in two refugee camps and in private places in Macedonia.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled to Macedonia during the war, but most of them returned after the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the deployment of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force.
Asmet Elezovski member of board Roma Nacional Congres
asmet@romanationalcongress.org
Stopanska Banka a.d.-Skopje
SFIFT-STOB MK 2X
40100-623-79
Konto 727150-11174-13
Elezovski Asmet
Ljube Gacev 6
91300 Kumanovo