3 U.N. Workers Detained by Yugoslavs Freed

Three U.N. employees who had been detained in Yugoslavia were released Wednesday, two days after their disappearance raised questions about whether Yugoslavia was violating the Kosovo peace agreement.

Susan Manuel, a United Nations spokeswoman, said Andre Teles of Portugal, Gordon Cimiratic of Australia and Kosovo Serb Dejan Santic drove to a Danish army checkpoint Wednesday evening and were en route to their base in the Kosovo city of Kosovska Mitrovica.

The U.N. said the men were taken by Yugoslavs on Monday to a Serbian town outside Kosovo.

U.N. spokeswoman Daniela Rozgonova said this was the third such incident in the past three weeks, including one in which five U.N. food-aid workers were detained at a Yugoslav police checkpoint within Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic.

Danish Maj. Ole Irgens, a NATO spokesman, speculated that the detainees in all three instances might have strayed across poorly marked borders.

Rozgonova said those held Monday were scouting sites for a communications tower east of Kosovska Mitrovica.

Detention within Kosovo by Yugoslav units would be a violation of the June agreement that ended the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s air war against Yugoslavia. The air war was sparked by Serbian forces’ “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Kosovo Albanians.

The accord called for the Yugoslav forces to turn Kosovo over to the U.N. and NATO-led peacekeepers.