(ANSA) - BELGRADE - Serbia remembers on Friday with several initiatives the victims and the destruction of violent inter-ethnic clashes and anti-Serbian pogroms occurred 13 years ago in Kosovo, committed by the Albanians (majority population).

In schools all over the country, the first lesson was dedicated to remembrance and to debate on the violence. In a school in Belgrade the Education Ministers Mladen Sarcevic and Labour and Social Affairs Minister Alerksandar Vulin gave a speech, reiterating their request for seeking justice against perpetrators of violence and attacks against Serbs. In a dramatic escalation of violence and ethnic clashes that erupted in Kosovo 17 March 2004 and continued for three days, Kosovo Albanian extremists torched and destroyed about 35 Orthodox churches and monasteries, as well as hundreds of homes inhabited by Serbs, schools, public offices. Ten Serbs were killed, and eleven Albanians were killed in clashes with international forces, a thousand people were injured, dozens of vehicles of the UN mission UNMIK were damaged, while more than 4,000 Serbs were expelled and a dozen villages were subjected to ethnic cleansing. Marko Djuric, head of Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo, said that the situation today is not hugely different from 13 years ago.(ANSA).