(4 Feb 2000) Albanian/Nat
Tensions are still running high in the divided Kosovan town of Mitrovica after bitter clashes left three dead and more than twenty injured on Thursday.
On Friday morning French troops fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of ethnic Albanians who pelted the peacekeepers with stones.
Three Albanians were killed during Thursday's violence and grenades were thrown at two Serb cafes, in separate incidents in the Serb-controlled area of the city.
International attention is now no longer focused on the fortunes of Kosovo, but the northwestern city of Mitrovica, like so many others, remains a city divided.
And on Thursday night simmering tensions resulted in a return to ethnically motivated violence that left three Kosovar Albanians dead and 21 ethnic Serbs injured.
On Friday K-FOR peacekeepers were still struggling to maintain order in the city.
Albanian youths pelted French military vehicles with stones and blocked two French tanks from crossing over to the northern side.
The troops responded with barrages of tear gas canisters, which drove the protesters away.
The embers of ethnic hatred ignited into violence on Thursday after two grenade attacks on cafes in the Serb district of the city.
Those incidents sparked a night of violence in which crowds of angry Serbs and ethnic Albanians faced off against one another on opposite sides of the two bridges across the Ibar River, which divides the city into hostile ethnic cantons.
The city's mayor confirmed three Albanians were shot dead in two separate incidents.
SOUNDBITE: (Albanian)
"Last night the situation was chaotic here. Three people have died as a result of attacks."
SUPERCAPTION: Bajram Rexhepi, Mayor of Mitrovica
After meeting with French K-FOR officials the mayor agreed to impose a curfew.
SOUNDBITE: (Albanian)
"I have met the French commander and it has been agreed that there will be a curfew from 2100 local time to 0500 local to stop further violence"
SUPER CAPTION: Bajram Rexhepi, Mayor of Mitrovica
Violence also spread to other parts of the province.
In Pristina 10 U-N vehicles, including seven police cars and three from the U-N High Commissioner for Refugees, were burned.
Some of Mitorvica's elderly residents were clearly shaken by the return to violence.
UPSOUND: (Albanian)
"It was terrible last night"
SUPER CAPTION : Elderly Albanian Man
The latest violent incidents follows a rocket attack on a United Nations bus in the Mitrovica region on Wednesday, which killed two Serbs and wounded three others.
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