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| Mar. 22, 2004. 01:00 AM |
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Kosovo drownings led to violence Families appeal for end of fighting GARENTINA KRAJA ASSOCIATED PRESS CABRA, Serbia-Montenegro—Thousands of mourners gathered yesterday at a wind-swept hilltop cemetery to bury two ethnic Albanian boys whose drowning sparked Kosovo's deadliest violence in five years.NATO helicopters patrolled overhead and Italian Carabinieri paramilitary police were posted around this northern village to ensure calm in a critical test of alliance efforts to stabilize the province. Although troops set up checkpoints along the road to Cabra and warned people away, about 7,000 mourners turned out. Up to 25,000 people had been expected to attend the funerals for Egzon Deliu, 12, and Avni Veseli, 11, but the unprecedented security and appeals from the families for a quiet ceremony kept people away. The deaths last Tuesday triggered days of rioting, looting and arson by ethnic Albanians mobs against Serbs, who they blamed for the deaths. The violence left 28 dead, 600 injured and 4,000 people homeless.The attacks were the worst outbreak of violence since 1999, when a NATO air war, which killed 10,000, ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians seeking independence. NATO has tried to keep the peace here since then. "(The boys') deaths brought more deaths to Kosovo and this has made our pain greater," said Sali Deliu, an uncle of Egzon. "Let's hope these are the last ones." The violence illustrated the depth of hatred between Kosovo's mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians, who want independence, and Orthodox Christian Serbs, a minority in Kosovo, who want the U.N.-run province to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro.The village is just outside Kosovska Mitrovica, the tense and ethnically divided city where the riots started. Authorities yesterday began investigating the claims of Fitim Veseli, 13, that a group of Serbs with a dog chased him and the other ethnic Albanian children into the Ibar River. His cousin was one of the boys who died; down the hill, along the banks of the river, divers were still looking for his missing brother, Florent, 9. The tight-knit families in this village of 1,400 appeared both united and shattered by their grief. Women wearing white scarves of mourning wept and fainted after pausing by the open coffins, gazing into the faces of the boys for the last time. The grief overwhelmed mourners as Sevdije Deliu leaned over to kiss her son's forehead before the coffin closed. As she turned, Egzon's seven sisters shrieked hysterically and held on to each other. Playmates of the two boys stood in front of the crowd holding wreaths and carrying signs that read, "Stop the Violence" and "We want peace."Despite their bitterness, the families appealed for an end to hostilities. "Though I lost my son, I wouldn't want more problems here," said Abide Veseli, 35, Avni's mother. "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy." |
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