Agron Skenderi, 40, was shot after failing to stop following warnings from border guards as he was about 500 meters (yards) inside Macedonia, near the town of Debar, the ministry said in a statement.

It said Skenderi and another man tried to flee on horseback after the warning, and the border guards opened fire on them. The ministry provided no information about the other man.

It was the first such incident this year involving a clandestine immigrant at the border between Macedonia and Albania, although the army has often reported attempts by smugglers to cross the frontier illegaly.

Two years after the signing of a peace pact tensions persist between the Macedonian authorities and ethnic Albanian guerrillas following a seven-month uprising by guerillas fighting for minority rights in 2001.

WAR.WIRE