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Crisis 1999
News Archive 1999

Serbs returning to Kosovo attacked near Gnjilane
Kosovska Mitrovica peaceful.

In an attack on a column of Serb civilians who were returning to their homes near Gnjilane, one person was killed and two were wounded, Kfor spokesman Ole Irgens told BETA on Sept. 14.

The attack occurred near the village of Ranilug, 15 kilometers north-east of Gnjilane in the U.S. controlled Sector East of the province on Sept. 13. Kfor military police are investigating said Irgens.

There had been no incidents or tension in the region of Kosovska Mitrovica on the morning of Sept. 14, or during the preceding night, and classes began in schools, a representative of the Serb People's Council, Nikola Kabasic, told BETA.

He added that 13 people (11 Serbs, one Macedonian and one Kosovo Albanian), who were arrested over the past weeks by French Kfor troops under suspicion of performing criminal acts against Kosovo Albanians, continued their hunger strike. Members of their families held the first peaceful protest in front of the district court building in the northern Serb populated part of Kosovska Mitrovica. They requested that proceedings against their relatives be speeded up, conducted under the laws of Serbia and Federal Yugoslavia, and that they not be tried by Albanian judges, since their impartiality could be brought under suspicion. Relatives of the detained Serbs sent a protest letter of similar content to court representatives, the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo and to the OSCE.

Source: Beta Press


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