Rebels take Macedonian capital suburb

Scores of frightened Slavs have fled a suburb of the Macedonian capital Skopje after ethnic Albanian militants seized control the area.

Police have blocked roads around of Aracinovo try and contain the rebels, opening the checkpoints only to civilians who want to leave the mostly ethnic Albanian town.

Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski said that an estimated 1,000 rebels "control all strategic points" and are heavily armed with light artillery and machine guns.

Army helicopters are flying low over the area and Boskovski pledged that the rebels "have nowhere to escape - they will be destroyed."

He said security forces are waiting for a government order to start retaking the suburb just four miles outside Skopje.

Aracinovo, however, is very close to Skopje's airport, and the rebels have threatened to target the base if they are attacked.

Unnerved by a rebel presence so close to the capital, virtually all Slavic residents have left the town, along with most of the ethnic Albanian women and children.

Five hundred ethnic Albanians from the wider Skopje area have crossed into neighbouring Kosovo, saying they were leaving as a precaution.

Local relief agencies met them at the border crossing, fed them and worked to reunite them with family members who had crossed into Kosovo.

The UN refugee agency says more than 20,000 people have fled Macedonia since the hostilities began in February.

Violence erupted when the militants took up arms, saying they were fighting for broader rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up between a quarter and a third of Macedonia's two million people.