Nothing will persuade Adem Mripa to leave his home. Not the grenade tossed over his wall that exploded, injuring his brother, not death threats, not offers to buy his house for far more than its market value.

The 60-year-old Albanian schoolteacher said last week: “The only way I will leave is when I die of old age and am carried out in my coffin.”

Mripa lives in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. As the province’s Albanian majority prepares to declare independence from Serbia, in defiance of Belgrade and against the wishes of Kosovo’s worried Serb minority, the divided town is becoming a flashpoint.

Only a few miles from the Serbian border, Mitrovica has been divided along ethnic lines since the 1998-99 war between Albanian separatists and Serbian forces.

The war ended when a Nato bombing campaign in support of the persecuted Albanian community drove the Serbian army from the province and put Kosovo under United Nations administration. But eight years on, the UN and Nato peace-keepers have failed to enforce their multi-ethnic mandate.

With a declaration of independence looming, it is too late. One of those who warn that there is a real danger of violence is Richard Holbrooke, the former American ambassador to the UN who helped to broker the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war. “Most people hate each other - much more than in Bosnia,” he said.

Mitrovica symbolises the ethnic divisions across the entire province. Most Albanians have abandoned their homes in the north of the town and moved to the south. Life for the few hundred who remain against blatant Serb hostility is increasingly hard.

Every day Mripa crosses a bridge reserved for Albanians to reach the south to work as the deputy director of an all-Albanian school. He looks over his shoulder and avoids passing through Serb areas.

“The Serbs are determined to make me leave,” he said. “They know that if I give up then 200 Albanian families will follow on my heels because I am a well-respected member of the community. Then there will be no Albanians left on the northern side and the Serbs will have won.”

In the heart of the shrinking Albanian quarter, a new Serbian government building is due to open tomorrow, timed for the deadline set by the UN for negotiations on Kosovo’s future status to end.

With no agreement reached, Mitrovica’s Serbs may refuse to accept independence. “An independent Kosovo means a conflict,” said a local Serb leader. “Many Serb refugees from other parts of Kosovo have settled in Mitrovica. They have nowhere else to go and will resist any imposed solution.”

Additional reporting: Andrew Wander

United Nations Mission in Kosovo website

Serbian government's official website

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