17.05.99
SECURITY SITUATION
According to the daily newspaper Dnevnik, the results of questionnaire that was realized by Agency for public opinion "Forum", showed that Macedonians at most are afraid from refugees, while Albanians are afraid from an eventual attack from Serbia. Citizens from the both ethnic groups have the same opinion for the media - nonobjective informing about refugee crisis.
NUMBER OF REFUGEES
Yesterday morning about 900 refugees from Kosovo entered Macedonia, while about 700 of them came with train in the borderland Bllace. 404 refugees arrived in Macedonia in Saturday: 346 in Blace, 47 in Tabanovce and 4 in Jazince. The total number of refugees in Macedonia is 277.115 refugees, and 82.475 have been settled in camps while 114.640 have been settled in families.
In Saturday 1.433 refugees have been transferred to third countries, using airlift. In Sunday about 1.000 refugees should have been transported to third countries, using airlift. 54.505 refugees have been transferred from Macedonia using airlift.
CAMPS
According to the daily newspaper Vecer, UNHCR says that they need time to adapt camps for winter conditions, so they started with preparations for supplying winter tents and heating.
According to the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija, the number of refugees who need medical support in camps has been increased, but in the Ministry of Health are saying that epidemics situations is under control.
SUPPORT
According to the daily newspaper Dnevnik, the International Red Cross (IRC) is helping in uniting families. Until now, they have united 230 families. Besides uniting kids and parents the IRC is also occupied with searching old people and persons with mental and physical defects.
According to the daily newspaper Vecer, humanitarian organizations that have not signed special contract with Macedonian government, mostly are refusing to buy Macedonian products, because they don’t want to pay taxes.
According to the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija, the Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana said that refugees will be back in Kosovo before the winter.
According to the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija, UNHCR, must pay expenditures that Macedonian government have made for refugees and not to push the country in poverty. According to vice-minister of foreign affairs, Boris Trajkovski, UNHCR is responsible for all what happened to refugees in camps.
According to the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija, more than 1.550 refuge children from Kosovo that are settled in Kumanovo, have been included in elementary and secondary schools of this city. These days UNICEF gave them 1.084 sets of schools necessaries.
According to the daily newspaper Flaka, in Friday night, in Bitola, Macedonian police stopped a truck full with humanitarian aid from HO "El Hilall". Although activists of this HO explained that in the truck is humanitarian aid, policeman insisted to check the truck, and during that, they damaged some packages.