| Battle of Lojane | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of 2001 insurgency in Macedonia | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Macedonia |
 National Liberation Army | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Boris Trajkovski Ljubčo Georgievski Pande Petrovski Ljube Boškoski |
Unknown | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
 Macedonian Army Macedonian Police |
Unknown | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
2 Mi-24 helicopters[3] Unknown tanks Unknown |
None; NLA militants had withdrawn from the village before the apparent engagement[1] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
None |
None | ||||||||
 2,000 Albanian civilians escorted by NLA to southern Serbia[4] | |||||||||
The Battle of Lojane was an apparent military engagement between the Macedonian security forces and Albanian insurgents belonging to the NLA. The occurrence of a battle in the village remains uncertain, as per Stevo Pendarovski, the former interior ministry spokesman.[5] According to him, Macedonian forces faced no opposition from the NLA, as the village had been deserted by both the NLA and Albanian civilians before the Macedonian Army and police forces entered.[5]
- ^ a b "Macedonia seizes rebel villages". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 4 November 2022. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
- ^ Archives, L. A. Times (2001-05-26). "Rebels Forced From Sites, Macedonia Says". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
- ^ "Macedonian rebels under fire". News24. Archived from the original on 25 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
- ^ "Mazedonische Polizei erlangt Kontrolle über Vaksince und Lojane". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Archived from the original on 25 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-25.
- ^ a b "Macedonia seizes rebel villages". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2024-02-26.
Macedonian forces seized two northern villages held by ethnic Albanian rebels yesterday in an almost bloodless operation, as thousands of civilians poured out of the area, government officials said. "Police have entered the villages and there is nobody there. Everyone has gone, the civilians and the militants," an interior ministry spokesman, Mr Stevo Pendarovski, said.