Mitrovica, Kosovo
NATO sent 2,000 reinforcements to Kosovo this week to help the 18,500 peacekeepers already there to stem the violence between the ethnic Albanian majority and the minority Serbs. At least 28 people were killed and 600 wounded in riots in the internationally administered province last week, following the drownings of two ethnic Albanian boys. After the brother of one boy said the two had been chased into the river by a gang of young Serbs, furious Albanians drove about a thousand Serbs from their homes. Hundreds of houses and several historic churches were burned down in the worst violence since the end of the 1999 war. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that the ethnic cleansing was “orchestrated and organized by extremist factions in the Albanian community.”
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