The situation on December 31 2008 in the flashpoint Kosovo town of Mitrovica was calm after several hundred Kosovo Serbs destroyed a number of Albanian-owned shops the day before. The trouble arose after a Serb teenager suffered stab wounds during a brawl with ethnic Albanians, media reported.

Serbs gathered on Thursday evening where the boy had been hurt and started vandalising shops and cars with Kosovo licence plates. Gunshots were heard until late in the night.

One ethnic Albanian suffered gunshot wounds and two more people were injured in the disturbances, media report.

Two Albanians accused of stabbing the Serb teenager were detained. The teenager remains in hospital, Kosovo police spokesman in Mitrovica, Besim Hoti, told Reuters.

The brawl started earlier the evening in Bosnjacka Mahala, an isolated mainly ethnic Albanian community in the southern, Serb side of the divided town.

Witnesses said that Nato and European Union peacekeepers with armoured vehicles prevented traffic from crossing the two bridges over the Ibar River, which divides the Serb-held north and the Albanian-held south of Mitrovica, while helicopters circled overhead. Peacekeepers maintained an increased presence after the incident, media reported.

The mayor of Mitrovica, Bajram Rexhepi, appealed on the morning of December 31 to all parties "to practise restraint" in order to ease tensions.

The government of Kosovo also asked the people to remain calm and retain peace. "Such incidents do not serve for the good of the country, so we call all citizens of Kosovo to keep order and distance themselves from these sorts of incidences," the government's press release stated.

However, the local leader of the Serbian National Council, Nebojša Jović, called for further protests against the EU Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), saying that it had "clearly failed to protect Kosovo Serbs".

Ethnic tensions in Mitrovica have remained high since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February. Mitrovica's Serb majority has refused to deal with Kosovo institutions and continues to regard Belgrade as the capital.

Most of the 120 000 Kosovo Serbs living in isolated enclaves among two million ethnic Albanians have refused to recognise Kosovo's secession from their former state.

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