Peacekeepers on alert for Kosovo funerals

Nato-led peacekeepers strengthened patrols to prevent unrest at the funerals of two ethnic Albanian boys whose drowning deaths sparked major violence in Kosovo.

Thousands of people were expected to attend the boys’ funerals today in the village of Cabra.

Reinforced Nato troops intensified vehicle checks on roads leading to the village.

The deaths of the boys on Wednesday triggered days of rioting, looting and arson by ethnic Albanians against Serbs.

UN and Nato officials, in charge of Kosovo since the 1998-1999 war over the territory between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, said they hoped to stabilise a relative calm after the unrest left 28 dead, 600 injured and 3,600 homeless.

“This was a setback,” said Harri Holkeri, the chief UN administrator for the province. “But this is not the end,” he added, pledging not to be deterred by the mobs in efforts to create a functioning multi-ethnic society.

Meanwhile, UN investigators searched the rubble of burnt Serb homes and churches, looking for clues that could point to the instigators of the violence.

Officers examined the gutted structures, some of which were spray-painted with the names of ethnic Albanians anxious to claim the properties as their own.

International condemnation of the violence induced local ethnic Albanian leaders to speak out against the turmoil and call for a halt to the rioting. Kosovo’s government also set up a fund to repair the 110 homes and 16 churches destroyed by the ethnic Albanian mobs.

The violence underscored the divisions polarising Kosovo’s mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians, who want independence from Serbia, and Orthodox Christian Serbs, a minority in Kosovo, who consider the province their ancient homeland and want it to remain part of Serbia.

Serbia’s Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said a division of Kosovo along ethnic lines was the only long-term solution for the province. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi rejected the proposal, as did the UN.

The unrest began after two ethnic Albanian children drowned in an incident blamed on the Serb minority in Cabra, located 25 miles north of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina and just outside Kosovska Mitrovica, the tense and ethnically divided city where the riots started.

Authorities overwhelmed by the rioting and lawlessness have been unable to investigate the incident and verify claims by a 13-year-old survivor, Fitim Veseli, that a group of Serbs with a dog chased the children into the Ibar River.

Divers were still searching for the body of a third child, a nine-year-old boy missing since the incident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the recent violence against Serbs “ethnic cleansing” and called for protection for the dwindling Christian community in Kosovo.

Nato bolstered its 18,500-member peacekeeping force with reinforcements from Britain, Austria, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and the US.

The reinforced units fanned out throughout the province to stem the worst escalation of violence since the full-blown conflict in 1999.

That war killed an estimated 10,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, and ended with Nato intervening against the Serbs, then led by former President Slobodan Milosevic who had ordered a crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Kosovo has since been an international protectorate, whose final status is to be decided by the UN.

For now, it officially remains a part of Serbia-Montenegro.