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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) A convoy of Serbs fleeing Kosovo under NATO escort came under attack Wednesday in the western city of Pec, the U.N. refugee agency spokesman said.
The convoy of at least 150 people leaving the southwestern city of Orahovac was traveling to Montenegro when it was attacked by people who attempted to pull evacuees from the vehicles, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Peter Kessler said.
Several cars and vehicles were set on fire, though it is unclear whether all of them were in the convoy. About 35 people were taken to the Italian headquarters of the NATO peacekeeping force, where a mob of angry ethnic Albanians gathered outside.
Serbs seeking to leave the province often have asked NATO to escort their convoys to avoid attacks by ethnic Albanians seeking revenge for an 18-month crackdown by Serb forces. The crackdown ended when NATO forces entered Kosovo on June 12 after a 78-day bombing campaign.
The alliance has pledged to fight the rash of violence against Kosovo's minority Serbs, saying the alliance would not permit any single ethnic group to rule the province, which is part of the Serbia.
It was unclear whether any of the evacuees attacked Wednesday were injured, though four people were unaccounted for after the attack.
Earlier Wednesday, hundreds of Serb villagers blocked a major Kosovo highway with tree trunks, cars and buses to demand that NATO peacekeepers track down two Serbs who disappeared this week.
About 300 people stalled traffic in Lesak, 20 miles north of the ethnically tense industrial city of Kosovska Mitrovica, demanding that NATO peacekeepers find the missing men and prosecute any possible kidnappers. The men vanished after going to work Tuesday in Kosovska Mitrovica, a NATO statement said.
''No one is doing anything to find them,'' said Goran Lazarovic, 30, of the nearby town of Leposevic. ''The last we had heard, they are still alive, but we don't know where they are.''
The U.N. police commander in Leposevic, William Thwaits, set up a meeting with protest leaders Wednesday to try to persuade the Serbs to clear the road, the main artery linking northern Kosovo to the rest of Serbia.
''People around here feel they are being neglected,'' Thwaits said. ''They believe that nothing is being done to help them find the missing people.''