Camp life leaves desperate refugees open to corruption and wild rumours

In a crowd of 30,000 desperate human beings, every rumour, however unlikely, must be taken seriously. Signs of rising tension have to be monitored and speedily sorted.

One of yesterday's rumours at Stenkovic 1 camp was that refugees who refused to be bussed to Albania would be banished to Australia. It was never a real runner.

Other rumours, however - repeated in recent days by many refugees - are being taken more seriously. The UNHCR has announced that it is conducting its own investigation into alleged corruption within the camps, in particular the suggestion that officials have been seeking bribes for access to the third-country evacuation programme.

The sense of increasing desperation and frustration was palpable yesterday as an angry crowd gathered outside the Irish delegation's tent demanding to know why their names had been taken by community leaders for possible Irish evacuation, when no one in the tent seemed to have heard of them.

The situation was further exacerbated by a security guard who in good faith had tried to calm all-comers the previous day by putting their names on yet another list.

It was left to Ms Martina Glennon of the Refugee Agency to explain in a calm, firm voice that there had been a misunderstanding. The anger dissipated but the despairing state to which they returned was almost as unnerving.

Mr Ismet Goveri stood out in the crowd in his expensive canvas khakis and French polo shirt. An English-speaking chemistry graduate who has worked in Africa and with the OSCE's verification programme within Kosovo, he is now just another imprisoned refugee, intelligent enough to know that, with his doctor wife and two children, he will appear on no one's "vulnerable" list and that this terrible place may be his home for a long time to come.

His real home is only 20 km away in Kosovo but it may as well be on Mars. His is just another wretched story of a whole community being given 10 minutes to "get lost", while their homes were burnt before their eyes.

Under the hot afternoon sun, he longed for nothing more luxurious than a shower.

Meanwhile, the border crossings remained closed to refugees for the sixth day, despite the government's insistence to the contrary.

Blace, the main crossing, plays host to a few donkeys and a trickle of passport-holders.

Rumours persist of collusion between the Macedonian and Serb governments to somehow redirect refugee traffic to Albania.

On the Macedonian side, however, the UNHCR's greatest challenge is to make Albania seem attractive to refugees seeking evacuation. The fact that it is much farther from their homeland, has a wrecked economy and a culture alien to many of them are not the only disincentives. The other problem is that once in Albania any hope of evacuation to a third country disappears. So far only a few hundred have volunteered to go.

The Macedonian government nonetheless pressed on with its demands for an evacuation of 66,000 refugees to what it calls "their mother country" but refused to confirm that this figure was its tacit trade-off for reopening the borders.

Some observers reluctantly support this action, noting that for the first time the "arithmetic" is going the right way. Daily airlifts of about 2,000 people are easing crowding in the camps without the pressure of a further influx.

The UNHCR, however, has other problems. It's broke. With upwards of 750,000 refugees in the region, the body had appealed for $143 million in funds but received only half that.

"This is a European situation. We expect Europe to take the lead in this", said a spokesman, before reading out the list of leading government donors in order of generosity: Japan, $23 million; US, $8.5 million; Denmark and the Netherlands, $3.4 million each; Canada and Switzerland, $3.3 million each. The three major European powers, Germany, France and the UK, have given $1.5 million, $817,000 and $800,000 respectively. Italy, he said, had yielded $8.8 million in private contributions.

There is no evidence of any donation from the Irish Government.