7 Serbs Killed, 43 Injured in Bus Bombing in Kosovo

A remote-controlled bomb in northern Kosovo blew up a bus carrying Serbian families on a pilgrimage to the graves of ancestors Friday, killing seven people and injuring 43.

The attack was the deadliest in more than a year in the majority-Albanian province. It is likely to undermine efforts by NATO and the United Nations to improve relations between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeepers detained two ethnic Albanians near the scene before the bomb was detonated--just after two military vehicles carrying Swedish troops passed safely over it.

“All of a sudden, everything burst, the bus seemed to have fallen apart,” Gorica Stjepanovic, 24, said from her hospital bed in Kursumlija, a Serbian town just outside Kosovo. “Blood was dripping from the roof.”

The bus--which came under attack near Podujevo, 20 miles north of Pristina, the provincial capital--was part of a five-vehicle convoy carrying about 250 people, accompanied by five Swedish armored personnel carriers and a medical detachment, peacekeepers said.

The bus company that chartered the vehicles to the Serbs said they were en route to Gracanica, just south of Pristina. The families were planning to visit graves of relatives today, the Orthodox Day of the Dead, and attend church services.

The explosives, which weighed 100 to 200 pounds, were detonated by remote control from more than half a mile away, said Brig. Gen. Rob Fry, commander of British troops in the region.

“This is an act of ruthless, premeditated murder,” he said.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica urged Serbs “not to fall into the trap of Albanian terrorists and respond with force to their crimes.” He called on NATO to prevent Kosovo from becoming a place “where fear and intimidation rule.”

The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack, urged calm and called on “all inhabitants of Kosovo to stand against the violence of extremists working against peace and stability.”

The European Union and the United States also deplored the attack and called for calm.

There were signs that the bomb attack, apparently by ethnic Albanian radicals, was part of a broader campaign against Kosovo’s minority Serbs.

The Beta news agency in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, quoted NATO officials as saying that peacekeepers deactivated six remote-controlled bombs Friday near the southwestern Serbian enclave of Strpce. The officials linked the bombs to the one that destroyed the bus.

NATO officials could not immediately confirm the report but said a car in the area was being searched for a possible bomb.