HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------[It seems like the UN tried to set-up checkpoints in Kosovoska Mitrovica, inside ghetto in the northern part of the city where mostly Serbs, Montenegrins and Roma live, but failed.]
U.N.'s Kosovo Mission Pulls Staff
By GARENTINA KRAJA
.c The Associated Press
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - The U.N. mission in Kosovo has pulled most of its civilian employees out of ethnic Serb-dominated areas in the province because of a recent escalation of violence, an official said Friday.
Serb staff working for the U.N. mission and 20 international staff members did not go to work in offices in four northern towns Friday - Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Zvecan and the Serb-dominated part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
Foreign members of the civilian staff were also advised not to stay overnight in the northern Serb-dominated areas ``for security reasons,'' said U.N. mission spokesman Andrea Angeli.
U.N. police planned to remain, but were to receive reinforcement from NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovska Mitrovica, Angeli said. Light armored vehicles had already been deployed, a statement from the peacekeepers said Friday.
On Monday, 22 U.N. officers and 12 Serbs were injured in riots. The clash - the most serious incident in a year in the province's ethnic hotbed - occurred after U.N. police tried to set up a checkpoint in the Serb area. That move triggered riots by Serb hardliners.
U.N. police arrested a Serb, Slavoljub Jovic, on suspicion he had led the attacks. Angry Serbs have since staged protests for four days demanding his release.
Kosovska Mitrovica, an industrial town some 28 miles north of the province's capital, Pristina, is divided into a mostly Serb-populated northern section and an ethnic Albanian southern section, separated by the Ibar river.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999, when the alliance bombed Serb troops to stop former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. Milosevic is now on trial for war crimes before a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands.
04/12/02 18:09 EDT
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