Amidst the tense situation in Kosovo, hundreds of Serb minority members again demonstrated yesterday against the arrest of an alleged Serb militia leader. According to police, stun grenades were also thrown at police stations in Mitrovica and Zvecan. The night before, two police vehicles had been stoned in the area.
The protests led to the arrest of suspected Serbian militia chief Milun Milenkovic on Tuesday. Immediately afterwards, there were violent clashes between Serb demonstrators and Kosovar police in Mitrovica. The crisis-hit city in the north of the country is divided into Serbian neighborhoods north of the Ibar River and an Albanian neighborhood in the south.
Tensions in Northern Kosovo
Tensions have been simmering in Kosovo’s troubled north for weeks after Prishtina decided to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority townships. Serb residents in the north of the country have previously boycotted local elections there.
Following the appointment of the mayor, there were serious riots in the town of Zvacan in northern Kosovo at the end of May, in which 30 soldiers of the KFOR international security force were injured. Since then, there have been isolated protests and clashes.
Kosovo, a country of 1.8 million people with a mostly ethnic Albanian population, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade still considers it a Serbian province to this day. About 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, mostly in the north.