May 19, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1423

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA (Yugoslavia): UN officials founded a multi-ethnic marketplace in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica on Saturday in the hope that communities who can trade together can also learn to live together.

Sited close to a bridge over the river Ibar which divides the town’s Serbs and ethnic Albanians, the market is meant to address two key problems shared across the Yugoslav province: ethnic strife and economic stagnation.

Three years after NATO bombing halted a Serb crackdown on Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority and the UN took control of the province, Mitrovica with its beleaguered Serb enclave seems as divided as ever.

French soldiers from the KFOR peacekeeping force guard its two bridges and many checkpoints in armoured vehicles.

The new market with 30 stalls, in an ethnic Albanian part of town known for high tensions, was donated by Swiss and French governments and is meant to restore a measure of normality and trust.—Reuters