The attackers shoot into the air and detonate explosive devices. No one was injured, but tensions between Serbs and Kosovars remain.
Serbian flags hang in North Mitrovica, Kosovo.
(dpa) On Tuesday, militant Serbs in northern Kosovo attacked poll workers and police officers who wanted to prepare local elections in the Serb-populated part of the country. The police in the capital Pristina said no one was injured in the incidents in North Mitrovica and Zubin Potok. The attackers shot into the air and detonated explosive devices. An office of the electoral commission had been destroyed.
Four mayors resigned
The local elections on December 18 and 25 became necessary because the Serbian mayors and municipal representatives in four municipalities in northern Kosovo, including northern Mitrovica and Zubin Potok, had resigned. They had protested against a decree of the Kosovan government, which declared the number plates used by ethnic Serbs issued in neighboring Serbia invalid.
Under pressure from the EU and the United States, the government in Pristina has now suspended the planned punishment of drivers with Serbian license plates. Kosovo used to belong to Serbia. After a NATO intervention in 1999, it split off and declared itself independent in 2008.
Activists and criminals in the enclave
To this day, Serbia is not ready to recognize Kosovo’s statehood. The small Balkan country is now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians. About a third of around 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in an area that includes North Mitrovica and three other municipalities and that borders directly on Serbia.
In the enclave of North Mitrovica, Belgrade operates its own power structures, based on militant activists and criminals. They keep erecting roadblocks and causing violent incidents.