Lipljan/Laplje Selo, August 31 (Beta) - KFOR Finnish battalion soldiers removed the tent on Friday, which was to accommodate Lipljane ethnic Serb schoolchildren in the coming school year.

UNMIK officials had previously set up temporary facilities to accommodate school instruction in Serbian, but the Lipljane Serbs rejected that solution.

- We have unanimously dismissed the possibility of organizing instruction in temporary shelters, as we find it humiliating and debasing - the former head of the primary "Braca Aleksic" Miodrag Mikaric told a Beta reporter.

He observed that the removal of the tent was yet more proof suggesting that "UNMIK has implemented decisions to the detriment of Serbs" and he announced that instruction in Serbian would be organized in the open, in the churchyard of Lipljane church.

The tent was set up by the Lipljane Serbs on August 19, as a makeshift school facility. Approximately 300 Serb schoolchildren remained without adequate schooling premises in Lipljane after ethic Albanians seized control of the primary school. Since the arrival of international forces in Kosovo, instruction in Serbian has been carried out in a private house in Lipljane over the past two years.

Serbs announced protests occasioned by these developments.