Seven Serbs Die in Kosovo Blast
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:11 p.m. ET
PODUJEVO, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Kosovo militants blew up a bus carrying Serb families on a pilgrimage to the graves of their ancestors on Friday, killing seven people, injuring 43 and leaving behind a tangle of charred metal, scraps of clothing and scattered notebook pages covered with children's doodles.
The attack was the deadliest in more than a year and is likely to further undermine efforts by NATO and the United Nations to improve relations between Serbs and ethnic Albanians after last year's rise to power of a democratic government in Belgrade.
NATO detained two ethnic Albanians near the scene before the remote-controlled bomb was detonated -- just after two armored personnel carriers full of Swedish troops passed safely over it.
``All of a sudden, everything burst, the bus seemed to have fallen apart,'' Gorica Stjepanovic, 24, said from her hospital bed in Kursumlija, a Serbian town just outside Kosovo. ``Blood was dripping from the roof, we were trying to see whose blood.''
``Somebody's leg was hanging from the window,'' said Stjepanovic, her left eye bandaged and her clothes filthy from the blast. ``When I managed to get out, parts of bodies were everywhere.''
Sasa Stojanovic, 28, sustained cuts, bruises and injuries to her leg. ``I saw people flying through the glass, but they seemed to be more body parts than people,'' he said.
No details on the seven dead were immediately available.
The bus -- near the city of Podujevo, 25 miles northeast of Pristina -- was part of a five-vehicle convoy carrying about 250 people, accompanied by five Swedish armored personnel carriers and a medical detachment, peacekeepers said.
The bus company that chartered the vehicles to the Serbs said they were en route to Gracanica, just south of Pristina. The families were planning to visit graves of relatives on Saturday, the Orthodox Day of the Dead, and attend church services.
The 100 to 200 pounds of explosives were detonated by remote control from more than half a mile away, said Brig. Gen. Rob Fry, commander of British troops in the region.
``This is an act of ruthless, premeditated murder,'' he said.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica urged Serbs ``not to fall into the trap of Albanian terrorists and respond with force to their crimes.'' He called on NATO to prevent Kosovo from becoming a place ``where fear and intimidation rule.''
The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack, urged calm and called on ``all inhabitants of Kosovo to stand against the violence of extremists working against peace and stability.''
The European Union called the attack a ``barbarous act of violence'' and also called for calm.
There were signs the bombing -- apparently by ethnic Albanian radicals -- was part of a broader campaign against the Kosovo Serb minority.
The Beta news agency in Belgrade quoted unidentified NATO officials as saying that peacekeepers deactivated six remote-controlled bombs Friday near the southwestern Serb enclave of Strpce. The officials linked the bombs to the one that destroyed the bus, saying they apparently were meant to target Serb convoys.
NATO officials could not immediately confirm the report but said a car in the area was being searched for a possible bomb.
Angry Serbs gathered in Gracanica, where the bus had been headed, and in Caglavica, just south of Pristina. Beta reported that a Serb woman was killed after a car sped through a roadblock she and other Serbs set up, an ethnic Albanian-owned restaurant was set on fire and an ethnic Albanian bus was attacked.
Reporters in Caglavica saw a bus burning and the body of an ethnic Albanian woman on the road. Hundreds of Serbs hurled stones at ethnic Albanian cars speeding through the town.
Large-scale ethnic violence has generally ceased since mid-1999, when NATO peacekeepers took control of the Serbian province as part of a deal ending the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia and putting a stop to a Serb crackdown in Kosovo.
But ethnic tensions have continued. Kosovo's Serb minority has increasingly been targeted by members of the ethnic Albanian majority seeking to get even for the Serb crackdown. Many of Kosovo's 200,000 Serbs have fled the province.
Friday's attack was the deadliest since July 1999, when 14 Serb farmers were machine-gunned to death while tilling their fields south of Pristina.
Also Friday, ethnic Albanian extremists operating in a buffer zone in southern Serbia just outside Kosovo kidnapped four Serbs, Serbian Information Minister Biserka Matic said. The Red Cross said they were later released unharmed.
Kosovo Serbs frequently travel north to Serbia proper to shop, normally under NATO protection. Kosovo remains formally part of Serbia, the main republic in Yugoslavia.
Ethnic Albanians are pushing for independence for Kosovo after 10 years of repression under the rule of ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.