Western governments were last night launching desperate efforts to pull Macedonia back from the brink of war and signalling NATO's readiness to secure peace if Slavs and Albanians can settle their differences.
Mr Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, flew to Skopje to save inter-ethnic peace talks after President Boris Trajkovski declared them at an impasse. A fragile ceasefire is due to expire on Monday.
Diplomats in Brussels said the Balkan country was now poised between peace and a war which could inflame the entire region. "They are staring into the abyss," said one.
"Without honest political dialogue it will be difficult to overcome the present situation," Mr Solana warned.
The EU has taken the lead in mediating a settlement to prevent the four-month-old conflict in the former Yugoslav republic from exploding, offering Macedonia the carrot of close ties with the Union if its bitter internal disagreements can be resolved.
As sporadic fighting continued yesterday between government troops and National Liberation Army guerrillas, the UN High Commission for Refugees said over 2,000 people had fled the border village of Radusa towards neighbouring Kosovo, following overnight attacks by Macedonian artillery and helicopters.
Reporters close to the Jazince border crossing near the north-western city of Tetovo said Macedonian Special Police wearing balaclavas had set up checkpoints and were searching families as they left.
Detonations and automatic gunfire resounded on the slopes of Mount Sara above Tetovo. Shooting could also be heard around Slupcane, in the northwest of the country and near Aracinovo, an NLA-held town on the outskirts of the capital.
Feverish diplomatic activity was under way in advance of Monday's ceasefire deadline and a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, where Mr Solana, with the Macedonian Prime Minister, Mr Ljubco Georgievski, are due to report on the crisis.
Mr Francois Leotard, a former French defence minister, is expected to be appointed as a permanent EU envoy to Macedonia, to supplement Mr Solana's increasingly frequent shuttles.
NATO offered on Wednesday to deploy 3,000 troops to Macedonia to supervise the disarming of the rebels once a peace deal was reached. Alliance ambassadors could approve the deployment of what is likely to be a British-led force as soon as next Wednesday.
Greece and Italy yesterday announced their willingness to contribute hundreds of soldiers to such a force. Heightening the sense of gathering crisis, neighbouring Bulgaria confirmed yesterday that its army special operations units, including paratroopers and commandos, were conducting an exercise close to the border with Macedonia.
Gen Kiril Tzvetkov, commander of the ground troops, said the exercise was routine and denied any link with the situation in Macedonia. But the government in Sofia did warn of its "great anxiety" that a failure of political dialogue in Macedonia would result in a civil war.
NATO officals, meanwhile, admitted that the proposal for a disarmament force was a politically driven operation and that the planning was "rather a rush job."
Details such as who would fix weapons collection points remained to be settled, and it was still not clear whether rebel weapons, which include heavy machineguns, mortars and rocket launchers, would be destroyed or stored.