Five policemen in Macedonia were killed and some 30 were injured Saturday near the Kosovo border in clashes with unidentified gunmen among whom an unknown number also died, a minister said.

"Five police officers were killed in a shootout with 'terrorists'" and some 30 were injured in the northern town of Kumanovo, Interior Minister Gordana Jankuloska told reporters.

"There are victims among the terrorists but for the time being we cannot give the exact number," she added.

Police said earlier that an armed group illegally entered Macedonia from a neighbouring country, while local media suggested they came from neighbouring Kosovo, populated mostly by ethnic Albanians.