Thousands mourn Kosovo children
From CNN Correspondent Matthew Chance
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 NATO peacekeeping forces trying to impose calm in the Serbian province of Kosovo, after ethnic fighting left 28 people dead.
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 Kosovo erupting into chaos
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• Deadly clashes in Kosovo
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CHABER, Kosovo (CNN) -- Kosovo has declared a day of mourning after thousands of people gathered at a cemetery for the funerals of two ethnic Albanian boys whose drowning sparked violence across the nation.
Twenty eight people died and 600 were wounded in mob violence that followed the deaths of Egzon Deliu, 12, and Avni Veseli, 11.
U.N. officials said a surviving boy told them a group of children was chased by Serbs into a river that separates the two communities in Mitrovica.
Three Albanian children drowned on Wednesday, but only two bodies were recovered.
NATO helicopters patrolled overhead and Italian carabinieri encircled the northern village of Chaber to ensure calm at the funeral, The Associated Press reported.
Troop set up checkpoints every 10 miles (16 kilometers) along the main road leading to the village -- and warned people they would be turned away.
Regardless, an estimated 7,000 attended the funeral, according to AP.
U.N. officials said they were investigating the deaths.
The incident sparked the worst violence since the end of the 1999 war in Kosovo with riots erupting in parts of the majority-Albanian province.
Soldiers and police sprayed tear gas, set up roadblocks, and established a curfew, but were unable to control the situation as thousands of Albanians swepts through Serbian enclaves.
During the upheaval, ethnic Albanian protesters set fire to 16 Serbian churches and 210 Serbian houses, burning them to the ground, U.N. spokeswoman Isabella Karlowitz said.
More than 1,000 Serbians were evacuated for their own protection to military bases of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR.
About 2,000 NATO troops have worked to calm the restive region, surrounding minority Serb enclaves to thwart any attacks.
Independent observers who asked not to be identified said the uprising appeared to be a planned campaign.
The observers said they were told that text messages were sent to Albanians' cell phones inciting them to riot.
After the United Nations' compound in Mitrovica was also attacked, all non-essential staff were evacuated from Albanian areas of the divided city.
At least 61 soldiers with KFOR and 100 police officers are among the wounded, Karlowitz said.
Mainstream Serbian and Albanian political leaders in Kosovo have appealed for calm, but an extremist minority appeared to be fomenting violence, Karlowitz said.
Madeleine Albright, who served as ambassador to the United Nations and later as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, helped broker a peace in the region.
She blamed the current unrest on neglect from the United Nations and the United States.
"There have to be more discussions about the final status of Kosovo," she told CNN.
"There has been a kind of a vacuum of interest in Kosovo. Extremists have filled that vacuum."
She added that there had not been enough action by the United Nations "in terms of engaging properly with the Kosovars to give them hope" nor enough attention from the United States.
"We did not have time to finish the job in Kosovo, and I just wish that there had not been a vacuum created there," she said.
Serbian Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said the violence was intended to cleanse the region of Serbs, to scare international organizations in the region and to prevent any further arrests of Kosovar Albanians indicted by a war-crimes tribunal.
"We cannot even use the term that this is an ethnic conflict," he told CNN in Washington after meeting Thursday with U.N. officials and Friday with U.S. officials. "Basically, this was violence against the Serbs."
Svilanovic said he wanted the establishment of a new organization in Kosovo that would guarantee Serbs the right to live in peace.
"It seems that Albanians are not at this moment willing to live together with Serbs," he said.
"I hope that this is going to be changed, and that reason and political leadership will prevail."
Kosovo is home to 2 million ethnic Albanians and fewer than 100,000 Serbs.
Svilanovic said the violence appeared to be the work only of a "very extreme" group of Albanians.
Kosovo -- in the country of Serbia and Montenegro, the former Yugoslavia -- has been under U.N. administration since the war ended five years ago.
NATO is responsible for peacekeeping efforts and protecting the minority Serbs.
Ethnic Albanians, meanwhile, are seeking independence from Serbia and Montenegro.
