Ukrainian dies after Kosovo clashes

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Ukrainian dies after Kosovo clashes

By NEBI QENA, Associated Press Writer


Boys collect steel from the U.N. burned car in front of the U.N. court compound in the northern Serb-dominated part of the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo, Tuesday, March 18, 2008. Serb demonstrators on Monday attacked international peacekeepers with rocks, grenades and Molotov cocktails as U.N. police removed protesters from inside the courthouse. The two sides traded gunfire in clashes that wounded more than 60 U.N. and NATO forces and 70 protesters.(AP Photo/Zveki)

PRISTINA, Kosovo - A U.N. policeman from Ukraine died of injuries from a hand grenade thrown by a protester during clashes between Serb demonstrators and international forces in northern Kosovo, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Tensions remained high in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica on Tuesday, a day after the worst violence in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia a month ago. French NATO troops fired warning shots and a shock grenade at stone-hurling Serbs. Nobody was injured.

On Monday, Serb demonstrators attacked international peacekeepers with rocks, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails as U.N. police removed protesters from inside a U.N. courthouse. The two sides traded gunfire in clashes that wounded more than 60 U.N. and NATO forces and 70 protesters.

The U.N. said it was pulling out of the Serb-dominated northern part of the town because of the shooting. The withdrawal could fuel a widespread Kosovo Serb desire to split from largely ethnic Albanian Kosovo and rejoin Serbia, even though NATO troops remained in the town.

The U.N. police officer died Monday evening in a military hospital, said police spokesman Veton Elshani. He is the first foreign policeman to die in Kosovo since the territory declared independence.

Ihor Kynal, 25, was part of a Ukranian special police unit in Kosovo since December. He was among the officers who removed the Serbs who had occupied the courthouse for three days.

A senior Ukrainian delegation will travel to Kosovo on Wednesday to visit their police officers and NATO peacekeepers.

Forty-one police officers were still being treated for injuries, the U.N. said.
A Serb demonstrator was in a coma after being shot in the head in Monday's violence. Doctors said he suffered severe brain injury and was fighting for his life.

Serbia, which considers the territory its historic and religious heartland, says Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal under international law.

"We will fight until we die. This is Serbia and we will not let it go," said Milanka Sridic, a Serb resident of Kosovska Mitrovica. "Kosovo is Serbia forever. They cannot do anything to us."

On the other side of the divided city, ethnic Albanian residents accused the Serbs of seeking to destabilize Kosovo and the entire Balkans as was the case during the 1990s.

"They are trying to start another war," said Avni Kastrati, an ethnic Albanian. "It is not Kosovo they want, they want trouble in the region, like always."

The unrest has drawn international condemnation and pledges to restore order in Kosovo, which has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched an air war to stop former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the international community "will not let itself be intimidated" by violence.

"One must restore order," he told reporters in Paris. "One must not provoke disorder."

The Serb minority dominates about 15 percent of the territory in northern Kosovo, including about a third of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo's second-largest city.
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Associated Press Writers Radul Radovanovic in Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo, and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

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