The Serbs have never accepted Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.
North Mitrovica:
Gunmen in armored vehicles stormed a village in an ethnic Serb-majority region of Kosovo on Sunday. They fought police and barricaded themselves in a monastery as violence flared again in the restive north.
Kosovo police said one officer and three of about 30 attackers were killed in gun battles around the village of Banjska.
Monks and pilgrims were locked up for hours in the temple of the Serbian Orthodox monastery.
Ethnic Albanians make up the vast majority of the 1.8 million residents of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia. But some 50,000 Serbs make up the majority in the north, where clashes in May left dozens of protesters and NATO alliance peacekeepers injured.
Serbs never accepted Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence and still consider Belgrade their capital, more than two decades after a Kosovo Albanian guerrilla uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
It was unclear who was behind Sunday’s violence, but Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla blamed “Serbian-sponsored criminals”.
“They are professionals, with military and police backgrounds,” Kurti said, urging their surrender.
Serbian officials had no immediate comment, although President Aleksandar Vucic was expected to make a statement in the evening.
The Raska-Prizren Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, to which Banjska belongs, said men in an armored vehicle stormed the monastery complex, forcing monks and visiting worshipers to lock themselves inside the temple.
“Armed, masked men move around the courtyard and occasionally gunshots can be heard,” the statement said.
“The diocese strongly condemns the open violence practiced in the religious institution of the Serbian Orthodox Church and urges all parties to end the conflict as soon as possible.”
According to police, the attackers first placed heavy vehicles on a bridge leading to the village. They shot at police who approached them before going to the nearby monastery.
In addition to the fatalities, three police officers were also injured in the shootings, Kosovo police said.
INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
The head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Caroline Ziadeh, and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, condemned the violence.
“More innocent lives are at stake due to the ongoing hostilities in the Banjska Monastery area,” Borrell said, adding that EU and NATO missions in Kosovo are in contact with authorities. “These attacks must stop immediately.”
According to a nearby Reuters reporter, NATO troops, along with members of the EU police force EULEX and Kosovo police, patrolled the road leading to Banjska.
Journalists were denied access to the village.
According to local media, Kosovo’s border police have closed two border crossings with Serbia.
Serbs in northern Kosovo have long demanded the implementation of a 2013 European Union-brokered agreement to establish an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
EU-sponsored talks on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo stalled last week, with the bloc blaming Kurti for failing to set up the association.
Pristina sees the plan as a recipe for a mini-state within Kosovo, effectively dividing the country along ethnic lines.
Serbia still formally considers Kosovo part of its territory, but denies suggestions of causing unrest within the borders of its neighbor. Belgrade accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of minority Serbs.
Unrest intensified when ethnic Albanian mayors came to power in northern Kosovo following April elections that Serbs boycotted.
NATO has 3,700 peacekeepers in Kosovo, the remainder of the original 50,000-strong force deployed in 1999.
The Serb-majority area of northern Kosovo is in important respects a virtual extension of Serbia. Local authorities and civil servants, teachers, doctors and major infrastructure projects are paid for by Belgrade.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
