U.S. peacekeepers stood behind barbed wire as protesters with Serbian flags gathered outside the city hall in northern Leposavić. Kosovoin an ethnically divided region where days of unrest caused NATO send more troops.

Following yesterday’s clashes in Tsvetana, another city in northern Kosovo, in which 30 soldiers and 52 protesters were injured, NATO said it would send 700 more troops to Kosovo to support its 4,000-strong mission. It is not known when the military will arrive.

Polish soldiers guarded the town hall in Zvecan today when protesters on the other side of the fence unfurled a large Serbian flag to cheering and whistles.

Unrest in the region escalated after Serb-boycotted elections in April, which resulted in a turnout of just 3.5% and ethnic Albanian candidates won in four Serb-majority municipalities.

Last week, ethnic Albanian mayors took office, a decision that prompted Pristina to chide the US and its allies on Friday.

The ethnic Albanian mayor of Leposavić remained at the town hall today after entering it amid Serb protests on Monday. He has not yet been contacted for comment.

“While they could have been elected in accordance with the law, we do not consider their election to be legitimate,” Dragan, a Serb living in Leposavic, told Reuters today.

“We are asking for the same thing that the international community is asking for – that they leave here peacefully,” he said.

The US and its allies have chided Kosovo for escalating tensions with the Serbs, saying the use of force to appoint mayors in Kosovo’s Serb areas undermines efforts to improve tense bilateral relations.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic put his army on full alert and ordered to move units closer to the border.

Majority Serbs in northern Kosovo never accepted Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 and still consider Belgrade their capital, more than two decades after the Kosovar Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.

Albanians make up more than 90% of Kosovo’s population, but Serbs living in the north are calling for the implementation of an agreement brokered by the European Union to create a union of autonomous municipalities in their region.

Peacekeeping troops were deployed to Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombing drove out the Serbian police and army.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters, AFP, dpa.}