In a clash with Serbian Serbs, hundreds of NATO soldiers hurled in the village of Kosavo in Kosavo.
The violence escalated in northern Kosovo as local Serb protesters clashed with police and later NATO-led peacekeepers, leaving dozens injured.
The force, KFOR, said on Monday 19 of its Hungarian and 11 Italian soldiers who were countering the most active fringes of the crowd were subject to unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices. No one of the 30 injured was in a life-threatening condition, NATO said.
More than 50 local Serbs were injured in the flare-up, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters in Belgrade.
It was the worst violence in the tense northern area adjacent to Serbia, where Vucic reaffirmed his pledge to protect the Serb minority that accounts for less than 7% of Kosovo's 1.8 million people.
We will not tolerate the pogrom of Serbians, he said, urging the ethnic kin in Kosovo to avoid confrontation with the multinational, NATO-led peacekeeping troops. I beg Serbs in Kosovo not to engage in armed conflict with NATO, he said. Serbia's authorities, including the army, remain in contact with the military alliance to reduce tension and prevent further violence, he said.
Earlier Monday, Kosovo's mostly ethnic-Albanian police forces used pepper spray in response to tear gas hurled by hundreds of ethnic-Serb demonstrators who tried to block access of officials to municipal buildings in Serb-dominated towns.
The escalation erupted as Serbian protesters tried to block newly elected ethnic-Albanian mayors from reaching their offices.
Such attacks are totally unacceptable, NATO said in a statement. KFOR will take all necessary steps to meet its UN mandate. To avoid the clashes between the parties and minimize the risk of the escalation, KFOR peacekeepers prevented threats to the lives of Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, NATO said in a statement. Both parties must take responsibility for what happened and prevent any further escalation, rather than hiding behind false narratives. KFOR, an international force, has served in Kosova since the 1998 - 99 war between Serbians and ethnic Albanians over Kosovo.
The flareup angers a European Union-brokered, US-backed plan for Balkan nations to normalize relations. KFOR asked the governments of Serbia and Kosovo to engage in the dialogue to reduce tensions.
The US and top European allies, including Britain and the US, condemned the government of Kosovo for what they said were actions that provoked the unrest.
The clashes erupted when the mayors tried to enter their office against the advice of U.S. and EU mediators. The officials had been elected in a local ballot in April that Serbians boycotted and called invalid.
Vucic said four local prominent Serbs were arrested in Kosovo and that his country was in talks with KFOR negotiating their release.
Serbia's army remained on high alert, a status ordered by Vucic on Friday. The government took similar steps last year, when recurring tensions in the region near the border nearly lapsed into fighting.
Tensions also closed schools in the Serb-populated areas of Kosovo, local Serb authorities said in a live broadcast.
The government in Belgrade refuses to recognize Kosovo as a nation and rejects the 2008 split from Serbia - a sticking point that is blocking both countries' attempts to join the EU.
For years, Western envoys have been striving to defuse the conflict. They intensified those efforts again after Russia attacked Ukraine.
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