Each evening, various aid agencies from different camps cross-check all the information they have compiled. The refugees are not in a position to do much of the searching themselves. Macedonian authorities do not let them leave the camps or receive visitors, and there is no way to make telephone calls. Sometimes, the refugees' desperation boils over. Yesterday at the Stenkovec camp, one man was carried into a field hospital, his nose broken and his head bloodied after an altercation with one of the Macedonian guards.
Dazed resignation is more common.
In the camp, with its rows of green or white tents, people milled in the walkways or washed their muddy clothes in a culvert. Mothers lose four, six children At the Save the Children tracing desk, Adile Ferizi joined the line. In the crush at the Kosovo-Macedonian border, she lost all six of her children, ranging in ages from 2 to 13. The truck her family was fleeing Kosovo in broke down before they reached the frontier. She isn't even sure they made it across.