YUGOSLAVIA: FRENCH AND ITALIAN PEACEKEEPING TROOPS CLASH WITH ETHNIC SERB AND ALBANIAN YOUTHS IN DIVIDED KOSOVO TOWN OF MITROVICA

Record ID: 350093

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: FRENCH AND ITALIAN PEACEKEEPING TROOPS CLASH WITH ETHNIC SERB AND ALBANIAN YOUTHS IN DIVIDED KOSOVO TOWN OF MITROVICA
  • Date: 10th September 1999
  • Summary: MITROVICA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (SEPTEMBER 10, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS SERB SIDE OF THE BRIDGE, GATHERED SERBS (3 SHOTS) 0.16 2. HAS FRENCH APC'S 0.23 3. LV ALBANIANS STEARING FROM THE BALCONY AT THE FLOW OF THE EVENTS 0.29 4. WS SERBS BEHIND CORDON /LV ANGRY SERBS BURNING THE ALBANIAN FLAG (2 SHOTS) 0.42 5. LV
  • Embargoed: 25th September 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NONE
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA3FY4QIW0GMZR3I97GC4F2D9P5
  • Story Text: French and Italian peacekeepers clashed with Albanian
    and Serb youths in one of the most tense episodes to date in
    the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica.But a senior
    French official dismissed the disturbance as a mere act
    of hooliganism.

    French soldiers and Italian special police blocking
    the way across a bridge in the centre of Mitrovica came under
    a hail of stones and bottles on Friday (September 10) from
    about 300 ethnic Albanians who massed on the bridge to taunt
    and jeer at Serbs on the other side.

    Earlier on Friday the peacekeepers fired about 25 tear gas
    canisters and percussion grenades to disperse the Albanians.

    The Ibar River spanned by the bridge divides the town into
    Serb and ethnic Albanian zones.

    Journalists watching the fracas from a nearby vantage
    point saw no sign of serious injuries although one French
    soldier was slightly hurt as shattered glass and stones piled
    up near the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers.

    The clash followed a Thursday night battle between Serbs
    and ethnic Albanians in Mitrovica that lasted several hours,
    causing scores of injuries on both sides and at least 15 among
    French forces who tried to break it up.

    The rival groups used gunfire, grenades, teargas and
    stones in by far the most serious ethnic clash in Kosovo in
    recent weeks.

    It appeared to have dealt another setback to the
    international community's goal of having Serbs and ethnic
    Albanians live together in Kosovo in the aftermath of NATO's
    11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

    The French military said nine gendarmes and six soldiers,
    all French, were injured in the confrontation that began at
    about 5 p.m.at a bridge on the Ibar River that divides the
    town.Fighting lasted until about 11 p.m.

    When peacekeeping troops closed the bridge to traffic some
    ethnic Albanians waded across the river to get at the Serbs.

    A doctor at a Mitrovica hospital said 68 people were hurt
    by stones, mostly thrown by Serbs at ethnic Albanians crossing
    the river.Another 15 were injured by shrapnel which witnesses
    said came from teargas canisters fired by French troops at the
    Albanians wading across the river.

    A number of children were among the injured, witnesses
    said.

    A spokesman at KFOR headquarters in Pristina, the capital
    of Kosovo province, said three people were being treated at
    the military hospital in Mitrovica.

    French military sources said none of the injuries was
    serious and dismissed a report that one ethnic Albanian had
    been killed.

    Another French military spokesman said the injured
    included 37 Serbs.

    Ethnic Albanian sources said the fighting began when their
    people tried to stop Serbs who began burning houses on the
    north side of town in fear that ethnic Albanians would move
    back into them.


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