Ethnic clashes on public transport rock FYROM

No one has been killed in several days of violence, but more than a dozen people have been hospitalised as rival gangs from the Slavic-speaking majority and ethnic Albanian minority fought each other with metal bars, baseball bats and knives.

Many of the attacks have occurred on the public transport system, with 20 arrests so far.

There was an increased presence of armed special police units on the streets of the capital, and the Interior Ministry said it had ordered officers to take buses to and from work to discourage potential violence.

Police said they had arrested five people for an attack on a teenager in Skopje. They did not specify their ethnicity, but media reports said they were Albanians, who make up at least a quarter of Macedonia's 2 million people.

Relations between the two communities remain strained more than 10 years after Western diplomacy ended fighting between government security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas demanding greater rights and representation.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski warned that he would use the full force of the law to deal with those responsible for the recent violence.

"Maybe there are people who want to disrupt the peace of the citizens, but those people should know that they will have serious problems and will face the courts and the possibility of jail terms," Gruevski said in a statement.

NATO and the European Union dragged Macedonia from the brink of civil war in 2001 with the prospect of integration if the guerrillas laid down their arms and entered politics in exchange for greater minority rights.