NATO-led peacekeepers reopened a major road today in a sign of returning calm after three days of violence in which majority Albanians torched Serb houses and churches.
NATO, which is responsible for keeping peace in the province since wresting it away from Serbian control in 1999, is sending some 2,000 extra troops to augment the 18,000 strong force already in Kosovo . Around 200 Irish soldiers are on duty in Kosovo with the United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNMIK.
Hundreds of extra troops, from Britain, the US and Italy, have poured into the area in recent days after the worst spate of ethnic violence since the NATO-led force moved into Kosovo at the end of the war five years ago.
A spokesman for the KFOR stabilisation force in Kosovo said no major incidents took place overnight, with NATO-led peacekeepers patrolling the streets in the divided town of Mitrovica, the scene of worst clashes earlier in the week.
"Things are very calm in Kosovo right now," Lt-Colonel Jim Moran said in Pristina. "We had a quiet night basically everywhere," added a United Nations spokeswoman.
Lt-Colonel Moran said 1,125 Serbs and other minorities had been evacuated from villages around Pristina and were now sheltered by NATO-led forces and the UN police.
Twenty-eight people, both Albanians and Serbs, were killed in the three days of clashes . NATO said the level of coordination seen in the attacks verged on "ethnic cleansing".
This week's violence dealt a blow to Western efforts to foster reconciliation between the majority Albanians and Serbs, seen as a necessary step towards resolving its final status.
Serbia, which sees Kosovo as its integral part, warned the West it could step in unless NATO managed to bring the situation under control.