Explosion near hospital in divided Kosovo town wounds one

An explosion near a hospital in northern Kosovo wounded a passer-by and damaged property in an ethnically divided town.

The blast occurred shortly before midnight Tuesday near a hospital in a southern district of Kosovska Mitrovica, some 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital, Pristina. The explosion damaged several vehicles parked in the area and shattered windows in nearby shops, police said in a statement.

The motive for the explosion was not known, the statement said, but Kosovska Mitrovica is divided between a Serb-dominated north and an ethnic Albanian south and it has been the scene of violent clashes in the past, the AP reports.

Kosovo officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro. It was put under U.N. administration in June 1999 following a NATO air war that pushed Serb forces out of the province after they cracked down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.