Yugoslav security forces pushed ethnic Albanian rebels out of a contested southern village in house-to-house fighting Tuesday, sending civilians fleeing or cowering in basements.
Backed by a tank and several armored personnel carriers, army and police units clashed with the insurgents and retook Oraovica, a village seized earlier in the week by insurgents operating in the buffer zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s larger republic.
Machine-gun fire shook Oraovica as government troops advanced. Reporters later saw several destroyed rebel bunkers with abandoned assault rifles, ammunition and bloodied uniforms.
The rebels had seized a swath of territory in the 3-mile-wide buffer zone that separates Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
