06/28/2012 15:42 GMT

PRISTINA, June 28, 2012 (AFP) - Dozens of people were injured Thursday in border clashes between Serbs and Kosovo police, authorities and local media said.

Some 70 Serbs had entered the breakaway territory from Serbia to attend a ceremony marking the 1389 battle of Kosovo, when Ottoman empire forces defeated the mediaeval Serb army.

But Kosovo police said the Serbs were disturbing public order in the northern ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica and began expelling them from the territory.

After they were deported they began throwing stones and other objects at Kosovo border police, the police said, injuring a total of 35 officers, nine of whom needed hospital treatment.

Serbia's Beta news agency said 20 Serbs were also injured in the clashes, including three who sustained gunshot wounds.

Later Thursday, witnesses said three school buses carrying Kosovo Serb elementary and high school students were pelted with stones as they passed through the Kosovo capital Pristina.

Around 10 children were hurt by flying glass and two were admitted to a medical centre, witnesses said.

Police said they were investigating the incident that occurred as the students were returning from a religious ceremony.

Earlier on Thursday there was another incident in the tense border area between Serbia and Kosovo when unknown attackers fired automatic rifles at a Serbian police post, slightly injuring a policeman.

Serbia does not recognise the 2008 declaration of independence of majority ethnic Albanian Kosovo and continues to consider the territory its southern province.

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