No pleasure in playing God on the first flight to a new land

The Kosovan man threatened to organise a big protest and burn down all the tents. He said those selecting people for evacuation were taking bribes. He was in a very bad temper. At a suggestion that the police be called, however, he retreated into the crowd.

People had gathered at a tent in the Stenkovec camp early yesterday morning where they were being processed for a first flight to Britain. That was now done and the rest were left behind. Their mood was congealing, like the mud they trod on in the morning sun. "It was like cream here yesterday," said Brig Gen Dick Heaslip of the OSCE, speaking about the mud.

He and his staff had been processing the evacuation of 76 refugees for a flight to Leeds. They began doing so at 4.15 a.m. A similar number were being taken from the Braza camp. At Stenkovec, they crammed 82 on board. Children would sit on relatives' knees.

International Organisation for Migration (IOM) personnel arrived late to conduct a medical examination of passengers on the buses. The delay allowed disappointment ferment.

The crowd at the tent began to question. They queried, they complained. "Ninety-nine per cent of these people have never flown before. They think a plane is like a bus. They say they will stand up," said Mr Gilbert Lazanby, also of the OSCE personnel. By then, many were reaching across a makeshift cordon, pleading. Children were wailing while some relatives and friends of those departing wept. Men demanded explanations. Others forcefully put their cases.

"Finished, finished, finished," Mr Peter Forsyth (OSCE) repeated.

Earlier, he had had to select people for the flight to make up for refugees who didn't turn up. They had probably left the camp. As he began doing so, one of the OSCE crew said: "This is the part where we have to play God."

There was no pleasure in the comment. Those Mr Forsyth chose included a physically-handicapped family and a 14-year-old boy who was on his own.

"The flight is full, there are no more seats," he was saying now. His interpreter asked the people to move back. But they kept pushing forward as if by some miracle they too might yet get to Leeds.

"What must the coffin ships have been like?" wondered Brig Gen Heaslip, looking at the scene.

Anger came to the surface at about 7.20 a.m., finding its harshest expression in the rage of the finger-pointing unshaven Kosovan man. Other angry men gathered in turbulent groups. It seemed dangerous for a while, but then calmed down. Empathy is worth a thousand words.

UNHCR criteria dictate that those being evacuated must want to go, and want to go where they are being sent. The old, sick, lone children, families without a spouse, and very young families get priority. Then come those who have family links with the third country concerned. The rest come last.

Where refugees going to Ireland are concerned, OSCE personnel recommended that an advance party be sent to Macedonia to handle basic (Irish) national immigration procedures, including medicals, and that a medical team accompany each flight to Ireland. The advance party should have an administrative element, they said, with office equipment which would operate in the field.

But there were those who got on the Leeds flight yesterday against all expectations. These were two grandparents. A young couple, with three small children, came forward to have their flight registration processed. The grandparents emerged from the crowd.

They were not listed with the family. The husband insisted they were.

"Relatives" are frequently acquired by those successful in getting on flights.

The old couple were turned back. But they did not give up. They harried and harried and persisted with registration personnel at the buses.

Suddenly, they were ushered into a tent out of sight of the crowd for a medical examination, and then quietly put on a bus. No one knew how they did it. No one asked questions. A hold-all rested on a chair near where they were examined. Its designer label read "Human Nature". Perhaps it is why they are in Leeds today.