Dangerous spring

Land mines, leftover bombs, random attacks take their toll on the innocent

By Fran Hesser
Special to CNN Interactive

Fran Hesser, a free-lance journalist from Montana, is in Kosovo to serve alongside her husband, a physician assistant, in the International Medical Corps, a volunteer relief agency. Watch for her dispatches on this site.

Land mines left by the departing Yugoslav army and unexploded bombs from NATO air strikes still pose threats to civilians

KAMENICE, Kosovo (CNN) -- Children and civilians are still the innocent victims in Kosovo, from the ongoing battle between rival Serbian and Albanian interests, and from the weapons of destruction left behind after the war in 1999.

The danger from land mines and unexploded bombs has increased this spring, as farmers venture into their fields, herders take their animals into terrain ungrazed since the war, and children -- being children -- ignore warnings and play in potentially dangerous places.

Three boys playing near the town of Kamenice recently discovered a cluster bomb left over from the NATO bombing in 1999. As they tossed it around to one another, the bomb exploded. One youth died immediately. Another lost both legs and an arm, and the third was badly injured.

THE PRESENT • Kosovo Journal • Situation Report • Reporter's Notebook • Missed Opportunities • Map: KFOR Troop Deployments • News report archive

I am no munitions expert, but as I understand it, a cluster bomb has a tiny propeller that rotates a number of times to arm the bomb's detonator. This keeps it from going off prematurely. When this one hit the ground, the propeller probably had not rotated enough; if so, the children's act of throwing the bomb around likely armed it.

It took ages to arrange transport to a hospital for the injured boys. Phone service is spotty here, and summoning an ambulance is next to impossible for villagers in outlying areas.

New hot spot

An Albanian man tossed a couple of grenades into a group of vendors at a street market in Gracanica earlier this month. Ten people were injured. Retribution was swift. At least two Albanians were pulled out of their trucks and beaten. Their vehicles were burned.

Gracanica is a village closely guarded by Swedish troops of KFOR, the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force. The main road between southeastern Kosovo to Pristina runs through the heart of the village. A beautiful Serbian Orthodox Church sits in the center of town, watched around the clock by Swedish troops.

The nuns and priests at the church understand the need for troops to guard the church from destruction. A historic church in Cernica was destroyed earlier this spring. But the Gracanica clerics object to the presence of weapons on church property.

A Swedish soldier told me that when he is relieved at his sentry post and must walk with his weapons through the church grounds to depart, the priests come out and beat his legs with tiny switches to show their displeasure.

Gracanica lately has replaced Mitrovica as the hot spot for violence in Kosovo.

Mitrovica is so quiet it no longer has a curfew. But traffic traveling through Gracanica ceases at 8 p.m., and it stopped entirely for a few days after the grenade incident.

Swedish soldiers guard the entrances to the town zealously, stopping cars frequently for weapons checks. But they cannot possibly search every vehicle, as the grenade incident illustrates.

The violence touched off demonstrations and clashes with KFOR troops throughout the province.

When someone sprayed a crowd of Serbs with bullets from an AK-47 in the village of Cernica, four people died, including a 4-year-old boy.

PAGE 1| 2 | 3