British NATO peacekeepers came under fire yesterday in the northern Kosovan town of Mitrovica.
In a day of widespread ethnic violence and gunfire which left one Albanian sniper shot dead by French troops, two French soldiers shot and wounded, seven Albanians and three Serbs injured, houses were burnt and ethnic Albanians forced to flee their homes.
British troops from the Royal Green Jackets based on the southern side of the River Ibar, which divides this ethnically-split city, returned fire on snipers shooting from the north bank. A British checkpoint on the northern end of the bridge also came under fire from snipers, and also returned fire.
No British soldiers were shot or wounded during the day's violence, a British NATO spokesman confirmed. French anti-sniper teams deployed in the north of the city returned fire against one position, killing one man armed with a Kalashnikov assault-rifle.
It remained unclear by nightfall whether the snipers were all Serb or Albanian, but as the town entered a 12-hour curfew from 6 p.m. French troops in the north of the city had isolated three men, suspected Albanians, in a flat from which they had opened fire. The standoff continued.
During the afternoon French troops in northern Mitrovica had opened fire with heavy machineguns, 20 mm anti-aircraft canon and automatic weapons in dozens of separate shooting incidents after two of their men were injured by snipers.
Two French soldiers were evacuated to a military hospital, one shot in the leg and one wounded in the stomach.
The heavy firing continued for five hours, with shooting taking place both within the Serb-dominated north of the city and across the two sides of the river.
Hand-grenade explosions, bursts of automatic gunfire, and continued shooting could be heard in the north of Mitrovica, as British troops took cover on the southern bank, escorting terrified Albanian families to safety as rampaging Serbs terrorised them out of their homes.
Seven Albanians were wounded after a hand-grenade was thrown into a crowd in northern Mitrovica, hospital sources confirmed in the city.
"This is a massive escalation of the violence in Kosovo", said one NATO official, "and we all fear that after this there is no going back."
"We're trying to calm the situation down," said Mr Oliver Ivanovic, the self-declared Serb Mayor of northern Mitrovica.
"This is the Albanians putting pressure on NATO and the United Nations to do something. The shooting was also coming from the Albanian side of the city."
The day of violence and heavy shooting was the first time that NATO peacekeepers had traded shots with Albanians or Serbs since they entered the province last June.
Over 1,000 Albanians have been forced to leave their homes in the north of the city in the last week, according to figures released by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
As night fell in Mitrovica the temperature dropped, and the streets were largely deserted due to the curfew, the only visible presence hundreds of patrolling troops.