Kosovo: UN police arrest 270 people over deadly riots in March

United Nations police in Kosovo have now arrested about 270 people in relation to the two days of deadly riots and ethnically-motivated violence that roiled the province in mid-March, a UN spokesman said today.

International prosecutors have begun handling 52 of the most serious cases, spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the daily press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

In two days of violence following the drowning deaths of three Albanian children, 19 people were killed, hundreds injured and many homes and Serbian cultural or religious sites were damaged or destroyed. At least 3,000 Serbs were also driven from their homes.

Last week Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway to investigate the violence and its political implications, and to recommend how the ethnic Albanian and Serbian communities in Kosovo can live together again peacefully.

Mr. Dujarric said the 52 cases involve 26 defendants, of whom 18 are already in detention.