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Monday, 6 March, 2000, 22:44 GMT
Tension grows on Kosovo border
![]() Serbian police patrol a road on the border with Kosovo
Nato-led peacekeepers in Kosovo are tightening security along the border with Serbia following recent clashes between Yugoslav police and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
A BBC correspondent who visited the area says it is almost deserted with only the sounds of gunfire and the occasional appearance of armed men.
Of the 200 people remaining, many are fighters with a new ethnic Albanian guerrilla group.
The incidents have already prompted US forces in the area to move their checkpoints to the boundary line, up from positions several miles inside Kosovo. K-For spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Philip Anido said: "Whatever K-For does, in whatever situation, we have to do it appropriately and not over-react to prevent good citizens from getting back and forth and conducting their normal business and family business".
Lieutenant Colonel Anido said K-For would leave security in the zone to Serbian local police. Alleged harassment The ethnic Albanian rebel group has vowed to protect villagers in the region from attacks by Serb forces. It is known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac - the three predominantly ethnic Albanian towns in southern Serbia where villagers say they have been subjected to harassment.
The refugees say the Serbian police search their homes for weapons, stop Albanians in the street for identity checks, and sometimes order them to leave their homes. Aid workers in the Kosovo town of Gnjilane have registered more refugees in the past four days than in the previous four months. Attack on transmitter On Monday, an opposition-controlled television station in Serbia claimed that five uniformed men attacked one of its transmitters, injuring two of its staff. The station, Studio B, blamed the attack on the police but state-controlled media dismissed the accusations as opposition propaganda. Analysts in Belgrade said the authorities appeared to be trying to silence the alternative media before local elections later this year. |
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