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TENSIONS grew in Kosovo last night after a Serb was stoned to death by ethnic Albanians following the reburial of victims of a massacre.
More than 20 people, including several French gendarmes, were wounded when the trouble flared in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica. A spokesman for Kosovo's United Nations administration said a group of Albanians went on the rampage after a reburial of ethnic Albanian men whose bodies were exhumed from a mass grave last month.
The incident followed one of KFOR's most robust law-enforcement measures since their mission began when British troops removed a Serb roadblock. The soldiers were supported by tanks and helicopters as they detained two defiant Serbs before removing the barricade that the Serbs in Kosovo Polje had set up to protest against a recent bomb attack on their market.
After the checkpoint was dismantled, an opposing barricade, set up by ethnic Albanians in the region, was also taken down with the help of the Albanians. Major Roland Lavoie, a KFOR spokesman, said: "There are some protests that prevent people from doing their job, providing security or aid to the population. Unfortunately, though that may not be their intention, they cause a threat to the population."
While Nato has vowed to remain even-handed, peacekeeping efforts have done little to prevent the exodus of Serbs from Kosovo. The forced removal of the barricade at Kosovo Polje came a day after some 100 more Serbs fled the embattled province, saying they had had enough harassment from ethnic Albanians.
New departures of Serbs and Bosnian Muslims have also been reported from the American-controlled sector near Gnjilane and the Italian-controlled sector near Pec. Nato officials say they are satisfied that the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army has disbanded and is not behind fresh attacks on minority civilians.
Serbian suspicions that the KLA has not been disbanded increased after Nato's list of weapons handed in by the rebels included only 800 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
The newspaper Gazeta Shqiptare said the 15-year-old cousins from the Kukes region of Kosovo began sweeping the fields clean of explosives two months ago after several villagers were killed by mines.