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PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's international peacekeeping force, KFOR, Thursday reported two violent attacks which claimed the lives of four Gypsies and a Serb.
KFOR acknowledged the killings were a setback to its efforts to establish security in the Serbian province.
``The steady improvement in the security situation faltered yesterday with brutal attacks reported in Multinational Brigades West and Center,'' the Italian and British-led zones, spokesman Major Roland Lavoie said in KFOR's daily press update.
Military police Wednesday found the bodies of a father, mother, daughter and an elderly woman from a Gypsy family shot dead in Gornji Dragoljevici, western Kosovo.
Gypsies have been the targets of many attacks over the past few months by Kosovo Albanians, who accuse them of having collaborated with Serbs against Albanians.
Also Wednesday, French forces found one Serb shot dead, one wounded and one unhurt in an ambushed car in northwestern Kosovo on the border with the Italian zone, KFOR said.
Finnish forces under British overall command in the central town of Lipjan reported a grenade attack on a Serb house Wednesday evening had wounded three people. One woman was in a serious condition as a result of the attack.
The attacks, coupled with continuing roadblock protests by Serbs and Albanians, underscored that KFOR and the United Nations administration running Kosovo still face a tough task establishing peace.
Serbs blocked the road through the town of Gracanica for a second day in protest at the alleged kidnapping of a resident. The protesters said many local Serbs had gone missing recently.
``The Serb population of Gracanica has spontaneously gathered at this roadblock to protest against the kidnapping of our people in this town,'' mechanical engineer Dobrivoje Jospinovic said, a red, blue and white Serbian flag fluttering behind him.
``We'll stay at this roadblock until we are guaranteed freedom of movement,'' he told Reuters Television News.
Ethnic Albanians' blockade of Orahovac in southwestern Kosovo, intended to stop Russian peacekeepers moving into the town, entered its 11th day. The Albanians allege Russian mercenaries fought alongside Serb forces in the area.