08/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a statement, Commissioner Patten strongly condemned "the violence by a crowd of Bosnian Serb thugs in Banja Luka yesterday. It takes a particularly sick cast of mind to attack old women attending a ceremony that was supposed to symbolise peace and reconciliation". The Commission expects of the authorities of the Serb Republic of Bosnia - Republika Srpska - "to find those responsible and make sure they face justice". EU "taxpayers are spending huge sums to assist Bosnia and Herzegovina including the Republika Srpska: the sort of medieval behaviour we saw yesterday has no place in modern Europe", said Patten. According to the AP press agency, on Monday some one thousand Serbs attacked some 250 Bosnian Muslims and representatives from the international community who were taking part in a ceremony to launch the rebuilding of the Mosque of the main Serb city of Bosnia, Banja Luka, raised to the ground by the Serbs in 1993.