Church blazes in Pristina

The Serb Orthodox church in Kosovo's capital city Pristina was burning on yesterday evening, on the second day of violence that has killed at least 23 people in the UN-run province.

"I can see the church in flames," said a Pristina woman with a clear view of the old Saint Nikola church in the city centre.

The priest was hiding in the cellar of his parish house next door, a spokesman at the Belgrade Patriarchy said. "Our Fr Miroslav is in the basement. He can't get out," he said.

To the north, nuns were evacuated by helicopter from their convent, Fr Sava Janjic of the Kosovo Orthodox Church told Reuters by telephone.

Reuters reporters earlier saw ethnic Albanians - a largely Muslim people - set a Serbian church on fire in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica. Another was billowing smoke and flames in Obilic, an ethnically-mixed town near Pristina.

Serb Orthodox clergy in Kosovo said 17 churches, monasteries and convents had been deliberately set ablaze.

The nuns from Devic monastery near Srbica, south of Mitrovica, were flown out on helicopters from Nato's Kosovo Force (KFOR) - after French troops sought church permission - when at least 1,000 armed Albanians threatened the monastery, the church said.

A Serb official in the central town of Lipljan said Albanians hurled hand grenades at the Serb quarter and exchanged fire with Finnish UN peacekeepers protecting a local church. KFOR was not immediately available for comment on the reports.

Serbia and Montenegro Defence Minister Boris Tadic, speaking in Slovakia, said he expected more violence in Kosovo and appealed to Nato to do more to calm the situation.

"The situation in Kosovo is terrible; I am afraid there will be more attacks during the night," he said.