A British aid-worker has gone on hunger strike in prison in the Serbian province of Kosovo after being given a one-month sentence for illegally crossing the border.

The aid-worker, Sally Becker, known as the Angel of Mostar because of her dangerous free-lance missions during the Bosnian War, was arrested by Serbian police last week on the Yugoslav border with Albania.

She said her hunger-strike was in protest at the fighting in Kosovo and its impact on women and children.

She was trying to deliver medicines and clothes to refugees when she was arrested.

Mrs Becker has appealed against her sentence and is being represented in court by the ethnic-Albanian former Communist leader of Kosovo, Azem Vllasi.