Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs clashed yesterday with police trying to protect Muslims laying a foundation stone for the rebuilding of a mosque in Banja Luka that was razed during the 1992-95 war.
Held back by a heavy police force, 600 to 700 Serbs whistled and shouted: "Turks, Turks," "Serbia, Serbia" and "We don't want mosques" as 200 Bosnian Muslims and a number of foreign dignitaries arrived to mark the start of work to rebuild the 16th-century Ferhadija mosque in the centre of the Bosnia Serb capital.
As Bosnia's top Muslim cleric, Mustafa Ceric, and Bosnian Serb President Mirko Sarovic laid the foundation stone together in a show of reconciliation, Serb protesters began throwing chairs, metal bars, sticks, bricks and stones at police, who retaliated with tear gas and bursts of water cannon.
The protesters, who later began to disperse from the site, reassembled in front of the parliament building. At least 12 policemen and several protesters were wounded, while a dozen rioters were detained.
Serb rioters forced the cancellation of a first attempt to hold the ceremony last month, sparking widespread condemnation and drawing broad international interest in yesterday's event.
The riots in early May left one Muslim dead and more than 30 injured, while several high-level international officials and some 300 Muslims were trapped by protesters for several hours.
The Ferhadija mosque was dynamited by the Serbs during Bosnia's three-year war, when widespread ethnic cleansing by Serbs forced Muslims and Croats out of ethnically mixed Banja Luka.
The Dayton peace accords left Bosnia divided into two entities - the Serbian Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.