The United Nations Refugee agency in Albania says there has been a big increase in the number of refugees fleeing across the border from the fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

An agency representative Tham Meechubot told the BBC that more than twelve-hundred ethnic Albanians had fled from villages near the border over the weekend.

He said several thousand more were reported to be on the move.

The Albanian interior ministry says it is by far the biggest wave of refugees since Serbian security forces in Kosovo began a major offensive against armed ethnic Albanian separatists at the end of February.