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Macedonian Police Charge 60 For Ethnic Riots

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Macedonian authorities have filed criminal charges against 60 people involved in an ethnic clash over the weekend that left eight people injured.

Police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told the AP that the 60 were charged Wednesday with participating in a mob intending to cause a crime.

Sunday's clash between mainly Muslim ethnic Albanians and orthodox Christian Macedonians broke out at the historic Kale Fortress in a dispute over a new structure being built on the foundations of a 13th-century church. The ethnic Albanians object to what they said was the rebuilding of a church on the site and have demanded a mosque be built alongside it.

Minority ethnic Albanians staged a brief uprising against the government in 2001. Nearly 90 people were killed in the six-month conflict.

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