Number Of Attacks On Serbs, Their Facilities In Kosovo Up By 50% - Serbian Officials

Umer Jamshaid Published December 28, 2021 | 12:50 AM

The number of attacks on Serbs and their landmarks, primarily church facilities, in Kosovo has increased by 50% in 2021 and is still on the rise, as evidenced by the latest desecration of a Serbian orthodox cemetery, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, a coordination body of the Serbian government, said in a statement

BELGRADE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th December, 2021) The number of attacks on Serbs and their landmarks, primarily church facilities, in Kosovo has increased by 50% in 2021 and is still on the rise, as evidenced by the latest desecration of a Serbian orthodox cemetery, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, a coordination body of the Serbian government, said in a statement.

On Sunday, residents of the multinational village of Kisnica located near the Serbian enclave Gracanica in Kosovo found that eight Serbian tombstones in a local cemetery had been broken and scattered.

"This year, in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija there were 50% more nationally motivated incidents than a year earlier, of which 20 attacks were on objects of the Serbian Orthodox Church," the office said in the statement published on Sunday.

The department called the desecration of tombstones "shameful" and "crazy".

The office also expressed concern about the increase in the number of such incidents given the absence of an adequate response on the part of the authorities and the protection of the Serb population.

In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian army and police led to a bombing of what was then the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, by NATO forces. In March 2004, Albanians in Kosovo conducted pogroms, which led to a massive resettlement of Serbs from the region and destruction of numerous monuments of their history and culture.

On February 17, 2008, the Kosovo-Albanian structures in Pristina unilaterally proclaimed independence from Belgrade. Since then, Kosovo has been recognized by 100 UN member states. Serbia, as well as Russia, China, and some other states, have rejected Kosovar independence.