Kosovo: Serb home bombed, four wounded

ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY), Sep-20-06 10:50

Pristina, 20 Sept. (AKI) - Four Serbs were injured when an explosive device was thrown into their apartment in the Kosovo town of Klina Tuesday night, in the latest violence in the province whose final status - independence or broad autonomy within Serbia - is to be determined by the year's end. Kosovo police spokeswoman Sabrije Kamberi confirmed that the four were in hospital in the nearby town of Pec and were out of danger, but gave no details.

Serbian news agency Tanjug reported a bomb was thrown into the apartment of Milorad Pavlovic, wounding him and three female relatives.

Protection of minority Serbs is one of the discussion points in UN-brokered talks ongoing in Vienna between the Kosovo representatives and Serbs.

The Pavlovic family, like an estimated 200,000 Serbs, fled Kosovo in 1999 when Serbian forces were pushed out of the province by a NATO bombing campaign and Kosovo was put under United Nations control, returned to their home a year ago, the agency said. Another returnee, Dragan Popovic, was killed in Klina on 19 June.

Ethnic Albanians, who outnumber the remaining Serbs in Kosovo by 17 to one, are pressing the international community to grant them independence, which Belgrade opposes. The UN is set to make a decision on Kosovo status by the end of this year and Kosovo parliament president Kol Berisha said this week ethnic Albanians were ready to rebel if their demands weren't heeded.

Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica appealed to the international community to "stop Albanian separatists in their terrorist orgy against Serbs". He called on the UN chief negotiator Martti Ahtisaari to take the necessary steps to prevent similar incidents if the international community doesn't want to become "an accomplice in crimes against Serbs.

It is absolutely unacceptable that the Serbs are being killed and that the Albanian separatists openly threaten violence and blackmail the international community," Kostunica said in a statement to Tanjug.

Ethnic tension has remained high in Kosovo. Last Friday, Kosovo police
minister Fatmir Rexhepi's car was bombed in the town of Gnjilane. Two days later, a powerful explosion damaged four vehicles and shattered windows in Gnjilane without injuring anyone, local police said. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government and parliament issued statements condemning the attacks.

Clashes between Albanians and ethnic Serbs in March 2004 left 19 people dead.