Ill, Elderly Evacuated in Macedonia

This nation’s fighters put their weapons aside Monday to let aid workers evacuate sick and elderly civilians trapped by weeks of combat between the army and ethnic Albanian rebels.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the lead humanitarian agency in the crisis zone, rescued 66 women, sick children and old men from the village of Lipkovo in the first such mercy mission it had been able to make in nine days.

“They were selected by the local authorities to leave because they were the most vulnerable,” said Red Cross field coordinator Olivier Chow. “Some were old and some were sick.”

After overnight clashes, the army and insurgents agreed to a four-hour pause in combat around the string of villages nestled under northern mountains that rebels have occupied for more than a month, bringing Macedonia to the brink of civil war.

“We were given adequate security guarantees by both sides to allow us to do this,” Chow said. “We hope to repeat the exercise tomorrow.”

Thousands more residents and displaced people are believed to be sheltering in cellars, although the precise number in and around Lipkovo, the main village in the area, just 20 miles north of the capital of Skopje, is impossible to judge.

The Interior Ministry and the mayor of Lipkovo, no longer in his village, said 13,000 to 15,000 people are trapped, with food, water and medical supplies running low.

There was no explanation Monday for how the figure had jumped from 8,000 last week. The Red Cross said it believed several thousand are trapped. But Chow’s team was not able to go into Lipkovo to count them on its short dash across no man’s land.

Plans for a wholesale civilian evacuation have failed, with ethnic Albanians refusing to budge out of fear of either the rebels or the reception that might await them from Macedonian troops.

The Macedonian army says concern for civilians has kept it from an all-out assault on the villages held by the rebels, who argue that they are fighting for fairer treatment of the ethnic Albanian minority in the country, who make up at least one-quarter of the population.

The Slav-dominated army has stuck to long-range shelling. This has not budged the rebels, but Chow said it has done significant damage to the villages he has seen.