Updated

Minority Serbs in a tense northern Kosovo city cast ballots under tight security, redoing a vote that was stopped when masked men attacked staff and destroyed voting materials.

Special police units in bulletproof vests backed by armed NATO peacekeepers stood outside polling stations to prevent a repeat of the electoral violence that stopped the Nov. 3 poll in Mitrovica.

The incident was blamed on hardline Serbs who fear the vote endorses Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia. Kosovo authorities said Sunday voter turnout was 22 percent.

The vote is to elect a mayor of the Serb-run part of the city and members of the local council.

Serb participation in the vote was a key part of an EU-brokered deal to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo, which is majority ethnically Albanian.