Explosions and gunfire in northern Kosovo

Explosions and gunfire in northern Kosovo
Deutsche Presse-Agentur - September 27, 2004

Belgrade - Unknown attackers tossed four hand-grenades and sprayed a local Serb-owned home with bullets late Monday in northern Kosovo, police assigned to the U.N. mission in Kosovo said.

No casualties were reported, as all five members of a Serbian family from the village Suvi Do near the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica managed to escape the explosions and gunfire unharmed.

However, the attack, the latest in a series of similar incidents, raised fears of renewed ethnically motivated violence in the already fragile province.

A two-day long Albanian rampage, which shook Kosovo in March, resulted in 20 deaths and a fresh tide of Serbian refugees. It also damaged the international community's five-year-long attempt to create stable environment in the province.

E.U. security and foreign policy chief Javier Solana will visit Pristina Tuesday as part of international community's fact-finding mission prior to October's general elections in the province. dpa ra gj

SECTION: Politics

September 27, 2004, Monday; 23:25:39 Central European Time