Čegrane

Entrance to Čegrane

Čegrane (Macedonian: Чегране; Albanian: Çegran) is a village in the Gostivar Municipality of the Republic of Macedonia. The village lies approximately 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) east of the city of Gostivar. It has a population of over 6,000 inhabitants.

History

Flag of the former Čegrane Municipality

At the beginning of the 19th century Čegrane was a predominantly Albanian village in Tetovo's Gostivarska Nahiya of the Ottoman Empire. According to the statistics of Vasil Kanchov (Macedonia. Ethnography and statistics), in 1900, Čegrane had 800 Muslim Albanian inhabitants. In 1913, the village came under the control of the Kingdom of Serbia along with the rest of Macedonia. According to Afanasij Selishchev, in 1929, Čegrane was the center of the Gornopolozhkiya municipality of five villages. Prior to merging with Gostivar Municipality, Čegrane was the seat of Čegrane Municipality.

Demographics

Old school

According to Selishchev, the village had 234 houses with 1,364 Albanian inhabitants Albanians in 1929. The 2002 Macedonian national census recorded that the village had 6,748 inhabitants.[1]

Ethnic groups in Čegrane include:

Refuge camp

Refuge Camp Čegrane

During the Kosovo War, a massive makeshift camp was set up for ethnic Albanian refugees in Čegrane by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and local NGOs. The area had been used as a rubbish dump, but the tiers that had cut into the steep hillside were filled with rows of thousands of tents.[2] It was managed by CARE, which initially expected 3,000 refugees.[3] It was filled to capacity in a matter of days.[4] It became the largest single camp in the entire crisis, housing over 43,000 people.[5] First hand reports describe that the Čegrane camp "held 57,000 displaced and emotionally shattered people."[2] They were provided with some humanitarian care, until safe passage was available back to Kosovo.

References

  1. ↑ 2002 census results in English and Macedonian (PDF)
  2. 1 2 Pascar, Jacqueline (2011). Abducted: The Fourteen-Year Fight to Find My Children. Random House. ISBN 9781845969653. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  3. ↑ "CARE manages second refugee camp in Macedonia" (Press release). CARE. 26 April 1999. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  4. ↑ Yearbook of the United Nations 1999 53, United Nations Publications, 2003, p. 346, ISBN 9789211008562, retrieved 1 April 2013
  5. ↑ Pettifer, James; Vickers, Miranda (2007). The Albanian question: reshaping the Balkans. I.B. Tauris. p. 224. ISBN 9781860649745. Retrieved 1 April 2013.

Coordinates: 41°50′09″N 20°58′25″E / 41.8358°N 20.9736°E / 41.8358; 20.9736

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