13 Serbian Prisoners on the Lam

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia — NATO-led peacekeepers and U.N. police using dogs scoured northern Kosovo on Sunday to track down Serbian prisoners who escaped from a detention center after overpowering guards.

Fifteen Kosovo Serbs, some of them facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, fled from a U.N. facility in the primarily Serbian part of the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica on Saturday evening, said Susan Manuel, a U.N. spokeswoman. Two were caught quickly, but the rest remained at large.

Hundreds of North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led peacekeepers and U.N. police used dogs to track the men through a wooded area near the jail. Troops threw up roadblocks leading to Serbia proper, as the Serbian escapees would be unlikely to retreat toward the southern, predominantly ethnic Albanian part of Kosovska Mitrovica.

Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the Serbian community in the city, said he had reliable reports that four of the prisoners had already escaped into Serbia proper, out of reach of the United Nations and the NATO-led peacekeeping force.

The Saturday night breakout was the fifth this year by prisoners in Kosovska Mitrovica.

The 15 prisoners who escaped Saturday night had been held for about a year, only five had been formally indicted, and none had faced a full trial, according to U.N. information.