Serbian hostages to return home on Tuesday via KFOR camp

The three civilians and two soldiers, separately seized by Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac Liberation Army (UCPMB) on March 4 and 21, were previously handed over to the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. A female hostage was returned earlier.

They had been taken to the U.S. military base Bondsteel for medical checks. The joint Yugoslav-Serbian committee in charge of the southern Serbia crisis said peace talks for the region could not move anywhere before the hostages were released.

The press centre reported several violations of the ceasefire brokered by NATO last month, saying the UCPMB opened fire on police positions in the villages of Taslak and Turija, as well as on a checkpoint in Bujanovac. The UCPMB is operating in the five-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone along Serbia's boundary with Kosovo.

In agreement with NATO, a joint Yugoslav Army and Serbian police force is returning in three phases to the buffer area, excluding an 80-kilometre stretch near the municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovac. Those 400 square kilometers are where the UCPMB have most of their strongholds and have launched most of their attacks.

(dpa)