A bus with 40 passengers was stopped at an administrative crossing between central Serbia and Kosovo and was not allowed to enter the province, General Manager of Lasta Transport Company Velibor Sovrovic told Tanjug late Monday.

The bus operates on its regular route to Ranilug and Silovo, the last two villages in the Serb enclave east of the city of Gnjilane in eastern Kosovo.

According to Sovrovic, the bus left Belgrade yesterday around 3 p.m. and Kosovo police did not allow it to enter the province at the at the Konculj - Bela Zemlja administrative crossing.

The people on the bus, including a number of women and children, phoned their relatives and friends asking for help and after two hours of waiting at the crossing, they were finally transferred to their destinations by private cars and vans, Sovrovic said.

He said a Kosovo police officer had asked the bus driver a license authorized by Pristina that Lasta could operate on Kosovo territory and added that it was not the first time Lasta had such problems.

Lasta buses were stopped at the Konculj crossing several times last year, but at the insistence of the passengers and the driver, they were allowed to enter Kosovo eventually.