(8 Aug 2013)
AP TELEVISION
1. Pan right of people walking into cemetery
2. Wide of people walking into cemetery
3. Mid of girl brushing away dirt from grave
4. Close of girl brushing away dirt from grave
5. Close of tombstones
6. Wide of man cutting weeds on grave
7. Tilt up of Sevdija Duraku reading prayers
8. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Sevdija Duraku, ethnic Albanian:
"It is Eid and I've come to visit my father and grandfather. The rest (of my family), my brothers are on the other side (in the south). I come every Eid."
9. Wide of boy taking photo
10. Wide of people praying by grave
11. Wide of people cleaning graves
12. Tilt up of people cutting weeds on graves
13. Wide of people praying by grave
14. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Kemal Muja, Mitrovica resident:
"We have the right to visit only twice a year on Eid celebrations. There was some difficulty, the (police) patrol was late. We came from the south. But, this (the restrictions) should all be eliminated and people should be free to come. What is going on now is tragic for Mitrovica citizens like us."
15. Wide of people in cemetery
16. Pan right from policeman to buses
17. Interior shot of man inside bus driving
STORYLINE
About a hundred ethnic Albanian Muslims were escorted by police early on Thursday into the Serb run part of the town of Mitrovica to visit graves of family and loved ones to mark Eid al-Fitr celebrations.
Mitrovica was split into a northern part controlled by Serbs and a southern part run by Albanians at the end of the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Since then the two sides have lived apart, and ethnic Albanian Muslims are only allowed to visit their relatives' graves in the north twice a year, on religious holidays.
"We have the right to visit only twice a year on Eid celebrations. There was some difficulty, the (police) patrol was late. We came from the south. But, this (the restrictions) should all be eliminated and people should be free to come," said Kemal Muja, a Mitrovica resident visiting the graves of his relatives.
The mourners have to be bussed to the cemetery with a police escort.
Serbs from the north also need escorts when visiting graves in the southern part of the city.
The divide highlights the lingering animosity between the two over 15 years since the war ended.
The Kosovo war began in the early 1990s when Kosovo Albanians declared an independent Republic in response to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic reducing the territory's autonomy.
That led to a brutal crackdown on Albanian separatists by Serbian troops.
NATO bombed the region in 1999 to force Milosevic to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, ending the war, and the territory was then placed under transitional UN control.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but it is not recognised by Serbia.
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