Thousands of Kosovars on Sunday buried in silent grief two ethnic Albanian children whose alleged death at the hands of Serb attackers plunged the province into its worst violence since the end of the war five years ago.
Nato helicopters hovered over the northern village of Cabra, while checkpoints were set up at the entrance to the picturesque village amid fears that the funerals could spark another wave of violence. However, the emotional burial ceremony ended peacefully.
Three ethnic Albanian children, aged nine, 11 and 12, drowned here on March 17 after reportedly being pushed by Serbs into the Ibar river. The third child is still missing. Cabra is located some 10 kilometre's north of the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
But the head of the United Nations police force in the UN-administered southern Serbian region said on Saturday that investigators in Kosovo had not been able to confirm the allegations.
The intense coverage of the incident by Albanian-language media was quickly followed by the bloody riots in which 28 people were killed and more than 600 injured, in the worse explosion of violence since the end of the war five years ago.
"We don't want any more victims," pleaded a visibly shaken Sevdija Deliu, the 47-year-old mother of one of the dead boys.
"There is no deeper pain than that I feel now over my son's death. I appeal for calm. There should be no more victims because they all have mothers," she said.
The funerals, attended by some 2,000 people, were postponed from Friday because of high tension in Kosovo that prompted Nato to send additional troops to help its 17,000-strong KFOR peacekeepers restore law and order.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi attend burial ceremonies along with Hashim Thaci, the political leader of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Speaking during the funeral ceremony, Rexhepi described the boys as "martyrs" stressing "the families gave us an example of dignity". He made no reference to the circumstances under which the boys died or to the recent violence, but called on organisers to make sure their speeches did not foment new tensions.
The bodies of the two children, 12-year-old Egzon Deliu and 11-year-old Avni Veseli, were laid to rest at a local graveyard as men prayed. According to the Islamic custom, the women stayed in the homes of the grieving family. The Albanian majority is mainly Muslim. The boys' schoolmates carried the photographs of all three children and banners reading "No more deaths", "No more assassinations", "No more violence" and "Peace for everybody".
The government of Montenegro has decreed Sunday a day of mourning for the victims of the violence.
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