U.N. Investigates in Aftermath of Kosovo Rioting

U.N. police officers Saturday took photographs, checked for booby traps and picked through the rubble of homes burned during days of rioting in Kosovo, searching for clues that might lead to the instigators of the violence.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization reinforcements fanned out through Kosovo to prevent further violence in the province as tensions eased after appeals by ethnic Albanian leaders and a veterans organization to halt attacks.

The rioting killed 28 people and injured 600, the highest toll since the end of the 1999 Kosovo war. With calm restored, United Nations police were looking for the organizers of the unrest.

Harri Holkeri, Kosovo’s top U.N. official, pledged not to be deterred by the mobs and said the world body remained dedicated to building a multiethnic society in Kosovo. “This was a setback,” he said. “But this is not the end.”

Kosovo’s government created a fund to repair the 110 homes and 16 churches destroyed by ethnic Albanian mobs. The leaders did not specify how much money would be allocated.

The violence underscored the divisions that have polarized Kosovo’s mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians, who want independence from Serbia, and Orthodox Christian Serbs, a minority in Kosovo who consider the province their ancient homeland. Ethnic Serbs make up about 5% of Kosovo’s 2 million people.

Serbs in the rest of the country donated more than 30 tons of aid Saturday for Kosovo’s Serbs. Authorities estimated that 3,600 people -- mainly Serbs -- were displaced from their homes.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said a division of the province along ethnic lines was the only long-term solution. Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi rejected the proposal.