American soldiers peacekeepers stood behind barbed wire as protesters holding Serbian flags gathered outside the building town hall in his Leposavich of northern Kosovoin an ethnically divided region where days of unrest have prompted NATO to send in additional troops.

After clashes yesterday Monday in Zvetsan, another town in northern Kosovo, in which 30 soldiers and 52 protesters were injured, NATO said it would send another 700 troops to Kosovo to bolster its 4,000-strong mission. It is not clear when the soldiers will arrive.

Polish soldiers guarded the town hall in Zvečan today as protesters on the other side of the fence unfurled a large Serbian flag to the sound of applause and whistles.

Unrest in the region intensified after the April elections, which were boycotted by Serbs, resulted in turnout reaching just 3.5% and ethnic Albanian candidates winning in four Serb-majority municipalities.

Last week the ethnic Albanian mayors took office, a decision that prompted Pristina to be rebuked by the US and its allies on Friday.

The ethnic Albanian mayor of Leposavic remained in town hall today after entering it amid Serb protests on Monday. He could not yet be reached for comment.

“While they may have been elected according to the law, we do not consider their election legal,” Dragan, a Serb who lives in Leposavic, told Reuters today.

“We are asking what the international community is asking — that they leave here peacefully,” he said.

The US and its allies have rebuked Kosovo for escalating tensions with the Serbs, saying the use of force to install mayors in Serb areas of Kosovo is undermining efforts to improve strained bilateral relations.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic put his army on full combat alert and ordered units to be moved closer to the border.

The Serbs, who make up the majority in northern Kosovo, have never accepted Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, and still consider Belgrade their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against oppressive Serb rule. .

Albanians make up more than 90% of Kosovo’s population, but Serbs living in the north are demanding the implementation of an agreement brokered by the European Union to create a union of autonomous municipalities in their region.

Peacekeeping troops were deployed in Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombings drove out the Serbian police and army.