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by James Hider
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, April 28 (AFP) - International peacekeeping troops in this divided town fired in the air Friday to break up fighting Serbs and ethnic Albanians shortly after a visit by members of the U.N. Security Council. The soldiers stepped in to save two ethnic Albanians who had been set upon in a shop by a group of Serbs, said a spokesman for the international peacekeeping force (KFOR), Lieutenant Matthieu Mabin. "The situation is now stable," he added. The incident happened in the Serb-dominated northern part of the town. An Albanian-owned house in the district was also set on fire, said Mabin. A KFOR soldier who wished to remain anonymous said three grenades were fired at another house in the same district, inhabited by ethnic Albanians and Bosnian Muslims. The district is known as "Little Bosnia." No one was hurt in the attack. The Serb attacks followed an incident earlier Friday when ethnic Albanians stoned two buses carrying Serbs to an Orthodox Easter mass on the predominantly Albanian south side of city. About 150 Serbs were on their way to mark Good Friday in the Orthodox calendar when the buses came under a barrage of stones, said Mabin. U.N. police and KFOR troops were escorting the two buses when the vehicles were attacked, according to Serb eyewitnesses. Four Serbs were slightly injured, the sources said, but a spokesman for the U.N. administration (UNMIK) said there were no casualties. Italian and French KFOR troops and civilian police sealed off the area around the Orthodox church as the Serb worshippers celebrated mass. As news of the attack spread, about 400 Serbs gathered at the bridge over the river Ibar dividing the flashpoint town. The Serbian leader of the north of the town called the attack "a new pressure" on the town's Serbs. “This is a good example of the situation in Kosovska Mitrovica," he said. "The Albanians can go to their places of worship and practice their religion without any problems in the north of the town, while for the Serbs it is impossible to do the same," he added. But the few remaining ethnic Albanians in the north have complained bitterly of harassment by Ivanovic's “bridgekeepers,” a group of men who monitor all movement across the bridges and have vowed to keep ethnic Albanians out of the north. The Serbian leader said he had raised the security issue with delegates from the U.N. Security Council who visited the town Friday as a key part of their two-day fact-finding mission in Kosovo. He said he asked about the U.N.'s intentions to carry out a census and to organize local elections. "I reiterated that a census is impossible because the Serbs are physically threatened, because two-thirds of the population are no longer in Kosovo," Ivanovic said, stressing that "in these conditions there can be no realistic census or democratic elections." The U.N. Security Council delegates had earlier expressed concern about security in the province during their visit here. Traveling under tight security, the diplomats met the new U.N. administrator of the town, American William Nash, as well as Ivanovic and the ethnic Albanian leader of the south of the town, Bajram Rexhepi.
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