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22 People Killed in Kosovo Rioting
Gunbattles, riots and street fights between Serbs and ethnic Albanians have killed 22 people and injured about 500, U.N. officials said Thursday, as NATO peacekeepers tried to regroup following the worst violence since Kosovoâs 1999 war. No new trouble was reported early Thursday, but evidence of the previous dayâs violence the day was still visible. Smoke billowed from Serb houses set ablaze in Kosovo Polje, a mixed town some 3 miles west of Pristina, and burned out cars littered the streets of the capital. The clashes started Wednesday in the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica after ethnic Albanians blamed Serbs for the drowning of two of their children and began rampaging in revenge. Melees broke out elsewhere in the U.N.-run province, including several enclaves where Serbs have eked out a sheltered existence since the end of the war. NATO-led peacekeepers and Romanian police units moved in, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to stop ethnic Albanians from surging across the bridge toward the Serb side of the city, where another crowd had gathered. The new tally of casualties Thursday was given by Angela Joseph, a spokeswoman for the U.N. police. Sixty-one police officers, including 40 members of the U.N. special police unit, were injured during the clashes, she said. Separately, Lt. Col. Jim Moran, spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers, said that 17 peacekeepers were injured. Some hundred Serbs were evacuated from their buildings in the center of the capital Pristina and other communities by police and NATO-led peacekeepers, officials said. The unrest spilled beyond Kosovoâs borders. In Belgrade, the capital of Serbia-Montenegro, demonstrators set the cityâs 17th century mosque on fire after clashing with police trying to guard the building -- one of the oldest in the city. Demonstrators demanded that the government act to protect their Orthodox Christian kin in Kosovo from attacks by the provinceâs predominantly Muslim ethnic Albanians. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-03-18 |
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