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Balkans
Serbs Abandon Homes , American Troops Attacked
"Three days after the worst violence Kosovo has seen since UN took control in 1999, fears were growing that most of the remaining Serb enclaves had been effectively wiped out, after dozens of houses and more than 20 churches went up in flames. The international community began deploying over 1,000 fresh troops to bolster the existing force of 17,500, which has failed to prevent what look like well-organised groups of Albanians attacking almost every place where Serbs still live in Kosovo... The protesters also turned on international forces in the capital. Michael McClellan, of the US Office in Pristina, said, 'Today, American troops were attacked by Albanian protesters - this has never been heard of before.'"
"Nato rushed 1,000 extra troops to Kosovo last night - 750 of them British - and Germany announced it will send 600 additional troops amid fears that the Balkans were again sliding towards a conflagration that could suck in neighbouring countries...in a new and more worrying development, Albanian rioters were also attacking Finnish peace-keepers... The scale of the rage shown by the crowds caught local Albanian politicians and commentators off guard as well. They were just as unprepared as the UN. 'In 24 hours Kosovo was transferred from normality to a state close to anarchy,' said Veton Surroi, a veteran liberal activist and editor of the newspaper Koha Ditore."
"NATO sent U.S. and Italian reinforcements to Kosovo on Thursday after fighting between Serbs and ethnic Albanians killed 22 people and wounded hundreds -- the worst violence since the province's war five years ago. Attackers burned several Serb houses and an Orthodox Christian church on Thursday ...The Kosovo clashes triggered fighting in the neighboring province of Serbia, where nationalists burned mosques and threatened Kosovo's ethnic Albanians with 'slaughter' and 'death.'...NATO sent in about 350 soldiers, mostly from Bosnia and Italy, to back 18,500 international peacekeepers now in Kosovo. The troops from Bosnia include an American infantry unit of about 100 soldiers."
19-Mar-04
Balkans
19-Mar-04
Balkans
18-Mar-04
Balkans