British troops arrive in Kosovo
British troops have started arriving in Kosovo for peacekeeping duties.
Yesterday NATO requested that the UK reinforce its “stabilisation” force, after fresh violence exploded in the Balkans.
The Ministry of Defence agreed to send 750 UK soldiers, the first 100 of whom arrived last night.
Ethnic violence was sparked in the former Yugoslav province when at least two ethnic Albanian children drowned, after reportedly being harried by a Serb’s dog.
A minimum of six people were killed in Mitrovica on Wednesday. The following day, a crowd of Albanians set a Serb Orthodox church on fire there.
The Serbian government announced a march in Belgrade today to protest at what they called ethnic Albanians’ “armed terror” against the Serb minority in the southern province of two million people.
Overall at least 31 people have died and 500 have been injured in the violence.
This represents the worst violence since NATO and the UN took control of the region in 1999.
The first UK troops came from the 1st Battalion Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire regiment. More soldiers from the regiment are set to be deployed later today. There were already 280 British soldiers in Kosovo.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he does not know how long the UK force will stay in the province.
“There are deep historic divisions going back centuries right across the Balkans, and many of those historic pressures are represented in the divided communities of Kosovo,” he commented.
“We have known all along when we committed ourselves to resolving the terrible ethnic conflict in the whole of the former republic of Yugoslavia that it was going to take some time.
“Building nations is not an easy task.”
