Macedonia battles a new enemy

Temperatures have dropped as low as minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia's elite police force is fighting a new enemy -- the harshest winter in years.

Around 500 policemen from units known as the Lions and Tigers have been deployed since Wednesday to towns throughout the country to clear streets blocked by nearly one yard of snow.

The former Yugoslav republic is experiencing the lowest December temperatures and heaviest snowfall in decades.

With temperatures dropping as low as minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit, 28 people have died after the cold worsened already existing illnesses, said Nikola Rizov, the chief of Skopje's main emergency service.

Two people died last week in an avalanche in western Macedonia, while a four-month-old baby reportedly died when a snowstorm in eastern Macedonia prevented the parents from reaching a hospital with their sick child.

With dozens of remote villages cut off and only several major roads in use, Macedonia's political troubles -- a recently ended conflict between majority Macedonians and ethnic Albanian rebels -- no longer seem to be the country's main concern.

"It seems the crisis is frozen now. We have a bigger problem," Goran Stojanovski, a 24-year old student from Skopje, the capital, told The Associated Press. "Snow is our enemy."

On Thursday, Lions officers were busy removing snow from clogged lanes that lead onto a street in the capital, Skopje.

Deployed until last week to crisis regions where Macedonian government forces and ethnic Albanians once fought, one of the officers said he was willing to face the new challenge.

"Our weapons now are shovels. I'm not trained for this, but it's a job, too," the policeman said, refusing to give his name.

Armed clashes between the rival sides mostly ended with a Western-designed peace plan in August.

The peace accord, which grants broader rights to the ethnic Albanians in exchange for peace, has still not yet been fully implemented.