A number of graves in the village of Brnjarci north of Skopje were damaged yesterday, the police informed.

The damage to the Christian monuments was reported late in the evening by shocked villagers.

Brnjarci is close to the village of Aracinovo, which was one of the main centers of Albanian insurgency in 2001. This gives the latest incident a particularly worrying angle and raised worries it might inflame inter-ethnic tensions.