(dpa) - Violence flared again Monday in the Kosovo hotspot town Mitrovica after international security forces ousted Serb protesters from a courthouse they had occupied for three days.
Three soldiers of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping mission and three UN police officers were injured when a mob of Serbs besieging the courthouse threw stones and Molotov cocktails at them, police said.
Several UN and KFOR vehicles were also damaged or set on fire. Police responded with teargas and flare-grenades. Serbian sources say that 10 demonstrators were injured.
Early Monday morning UN police and KFOR stormed the courthouse, three days after Serb protesters violently took control of it. The 53 people inside were arrested, UN police spokesman Besim Hoti said.
Violence erupted outside when hundreds of Serbs gathered to prevent their compatriots from being taken away by police. Some 20 of the arrested reportedly managed to flee.
The capital Pristina had backed the raid aimed at restoring control over the courthouse.
"We asked UN and KFOR from the start of the crisis to restore law and order and protect Kosovo's institutions," deputy premier Hajredin Kuci told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
He said the "UN Mission in Kosovo and KFOR should deploy its entire force and authority in all parts of Kosovo."
Serbs have been protesting daily in their northern Kosovo enclave, with northern Mitrovica as its hub, each day since the Pristina leadership, reflecting the wishes of the Albanian majority, declared independence from Serbia last month.
The protests have been approved by Belgrade, which insists on sovereignty over Kosovo, even when they turned violent. Serbia runs parallel structures of authority in northern Kosovo and is trying to enforce a partition along ethnic lines.
The province had been run by the UN since NATO ousted Belgrade's security forces from it in 1999.
Excluding the Serb-dominated northern fifth, Albanians make up an overwhelming majority in Kosovo, the independence of which has been recognized by leading Western nations.