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UN police officer dies after Serb riot in Kosovo

Other News Materials 18 March 2008 13:49 (UTC +04:00)

(dpa) - A UN police officer died from injuries suffered during the worst riot by Serbs in newly independent Kosovo, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The international police officer, a Ukrainian, was among more than 60 injured during violence Monday in Mitrovica, a divided town that is a Serb stronghold in overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.

The officer died late Monday in a military hospital, police spokesman Veton Elshani said in Pristina, Kosovo's capital. No further details were immediately available.

A Serb mob Monday stoned, firebombed and shot at NATO peacekeepers and UN police who stormed a Mitrovica courthouse that protesters had occupied since Friday.

NATO rushed some 400 extra troops to the northern, Serb-dominated part of Mitrovica to restore order.

It was the most serious violence since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17. Western powers condemned the rioting and called for restraint, while Russia and Serb nationalists denounced the UN courthouse raid.

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