Two people, one of them a British television producer, were killed after mortar shells hit the Kosovo village of Krivenik, near the border with Macedonia, at midday yesterday. Both the Macedonian security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels have denied responsibility for the shelling.
The Macedonian authorities have been using tanks, troops and artillery in a drive against the rebels of the National Liberation Army, but have met stubborn resistance. The shells which landed across the border in Kosovo killed a young resident of Krivenik as well as Mr Kerem Lawton (30), a television news producer. Between 10 and 20 people were injured.
The village is less than a mile inside the Kosovo border. US and Polish troops from the KFOR peacekeeping force withdrew from the area after the shelling started and could not say who fired the rounds. KFOR sent in medical teams and set up a field hospital to treat the wounded.
Mr Lawton, a British national and a producer with Associated Press Television News, had arrived at the Kosovo-Macedonia border to cover the deployment of the Nato-led peacekeepers who are monitoring the fighting. He sustained shrapnel wounds when a shell hit his car. Mr Syllejman Klokoqi, an APTN camera operator, said he had left the car to photograph refugees fleeing the area, and Mr Lawton was parking it, when he heard an explosion and saw a plume of smoke.
"I saw people lying on the ground. I started shouting, `Kerem! Kerem!' Then I saw Kerem in the car," he said. NATO medical personnel treated Mr Lawton at the scene, then took him by road to Camp Bondsteel, the US military base in Kosovo. He was dead on arrival at the base hospital, said US army Capt Alayne Cramer. She said it was not possible to fly him out of the area because of sustained fire.
Maj James Marshall, a spokesman for US forces in Kosovo, said no peacekeepers were reported injured. American soldiers sealed off the village. The other man who died was named as Baki Krasniqi, a 19-year-old Kosovo Albanian.
A Macedonian military spokesman said the shell that killed Mr Lawton "was not fired from the Macedonian side" and that the security forces were conducting an investigation. A spokesman for the insurgents said they lacked the military capability to strike the village from their positions in Macedonia. UN officials said 10 shells landed in Krivenik.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to ease tension, the European Union's high representative on foreign and security policy, Mr Javier Solana, has suggested that the government in Skopje invite moderate political leaders from the Albanian minority to a signing ceremony between Macedonia and the EU. The Republic of Macedonia is due to sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the first step to negotiations on EU membership, in Luxembourg on April 9th.