Serbs In Northern Kosovo Continue Protest In Zvecan

ZVECAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2023) Several hundred Serbs are still in front of the municipal building in Zvecan to demand the resignation of its Albanian mayor, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Friday.

The number of protesters is not decreasing as hundreds of people have been gathering at the same site every morning this week, following violent clashes with Kosovar and NATO security forces on Monday.

The Serb protesters appeared to be in high spirits on Friday; they have been playing music, greeting each other and chatting, while many women are among them. Troops from NATO's local KFOR contingent remain deployed around the building behind barbed wire.

On Thursday evening, workers at Trepca Mines, the largest mining and processing plant in the Western Balkans, joined the protest to say that Kosovar authorities were forcing the mine to partially suspend operations.

Sputnik's correspondent reported that representatives of Serb List, the largest party representing ethnic Serbs in Kosovo, had begun talks with KFOR commanders on Wednesday about providing security at the protests.

The latest wave of Serb protests in northern Kosovo was triggered by municipal elections with a marginal 3.5% voter turnout that installed Albanian mayors in the Serb-majority region. Kosovo, whose independence from Belgrade has still not been recognized by Serbia and dozens of other countries, deployed police to the region, while Serbia put its armed forces on full combat alert and started moving them toward the border.

NATO deployed its troops in four protesting regions in northern Kosovo, and announced it was sending additional troops to reinforce KFOR. Officers surrounded the local government buildings with rows of barbed wire in advance, with heavily equipped Kosovo Albanian police fighters with armored vehicles positioned behind them.

On Monday, thousands of Serbs protested in Zvecan and Leposavic, which escalated into clashes with security forces that left 52 Serbs and at least 30 KFOR troops injured.