6 years ago
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- A shootout at a prison in Kosovo killed at least two international police officers and injured several others, a U.N. spokesman said. An American policewoman was among the dead, a Serb doctor said. Serb and international sources in the city told The Associated Press that the U.N. police officers started shooting at each other and that the shootout lasted for about 10 minutes. The information could not be immediately confirmed. Four Jordanian police officers were arrested in connection with the incident, a NATO source told AP on condition of anonymity. Neeraj Singh, the spokesman for the U.N. police, confirmed that two international officers were killed as a result of the shootout.
He would not disclose their nationalities. "There has been a shooting incident," Singh said. "The incident involved international police officers." Milan Ivanovic, a doctor in the hospital in the Serb-held part of Kosovska Mitrovica, told The Associated Press that an American woman officer died of her injuries. Other Americans were among the injured, he said. "Their wounds are predominantly in the chest and abdomen," Ivanovic said. "They were caused by firearms and possibly explosive devices." It was not immediately clear what caused the shootout in the prison in tense Kosovska Mitrovica, which has been the scene of ethnic violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians a month ago. Singh said that "police are currently investigating the circumstances of the incident." Kosovska Mitrovica has long been a flashpoint for troubles between ethnic Albanians on the southern side of the Ibar River and Serbs, who live in the northern part of the city 25 miles from the capital, Pristina. Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, after NATO launched a 78-day air war to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic from cracking down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence. There are some 3,500 U.N. police officers serving in Kosovo alongside a 6,000-strong local force.
Associated Press