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KLOKOT, Serbia - Two Serb teenagers were killed and five other people were wounded in a mortar attack on a Kosovo village, the KFOR international peacekeeping force in the Serbian province said on Tuesday.
KFOR said about nine shells were fired into the mainly Serb village of Klokot, 45 km (27 miles) southeast of the provincial capital Pristina, in the United States sector of Kosovo. A 14-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy died in the attack on Monday evening.
U.S. soldiers were searching for the assailants and considered ethnic Albanians the most likely perpetrators.
The Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla force, which fought a 16-month campaign against Serbian rule, said its members were not responsible for any attacks on Serb civilians.
Up to 180,000 Serbs are estimated to have left Kosovo over the past two months, many of them fearing attacks from Albanians bent on revenge for Serb violence against them.
Residents clad in black and wailing loudly processed through the village to the local church in hot sunshine on Tuesday afternoon to bury the dead. A tractor trailer carried the coffins and mourners held two wreaths of flowers.
"The Serbians here are scared. They're worried for their livelihoods, they're worried for their children, they're worried for their grandparents," said Senior Medic Raymond Lester of the 177 Armoured Batallion.
"They're seeing that everything that KFOR does is not protecting them and they're leaving by the truckload," Lester, who treated some of the wounded, told Reuters Television.
He said three more people would have died in the attack if U.S. medics had not been on hand quickly to help them.
Patches of blood and discarded surgical gloves in a gravel road marked the scene of the attack. Local residents said the road had been packed with people when the shells struck.
"The street was full of kids, younger and older ones," said Mile Spasija, 55.
The teenagers appeared to be the latest victims of what some international officials and aid workers here now describe as "reverse ethnic cleansing" to force Serbs out of Kosovo, just as Serbs tried to purge the province of Albanians.
Officials are divided, however, over whether the attacks and intimidation are the work of the KLA, just rogue elements of the guerrilla force, or simple gangsters exploiting a severe lack of law enforcement in the province.
The KLA, which is in the midst of handing in its weapons under an agreement with KFOR, issued a statement on Tuesday insisting it was not trying to force Serbs out.
"The KLA invites all the citizens of Kosova, regardless of their ethnic background, to stay in Kosova, so that they can contribute to the building of a free and democratic society based on respect for human rights, tolerance and diversity," the KLA said, using the Albanian name for the province.
KFOR said the overall situation in Kosovo was quiet over the past 24 hours but incidents of violent crime continued.
An elderly couple, possibly of Croatian origin, were found dead on Monday evening in the southwestern city of Prizren.
In the U.S. zone, an eight-year-old ethnic Albanian boy was taken to hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. British forces in central Kosovo reported three civilians had been slightly wounded in grenade incidents.