Vidovdan incidents in Kosovo

A group of Serbian fans clashed with the Kosovo police at the Merdare crossing on June 28 around eight o'clock. According to initial information, 13 were wounded by firearms, and ten were transferred to the Health Center in Prokuplje. Doctor Zoran Vučković from the Health Center in Prokuplje told the Beta agency that all ten Serbs had gunshot wounds, but that he did not know whether they were from live ammunition or rubber bullets. No one's life is in danger. Six people were treated at the Surgery Department of the hospital in Prokuplje, and one seriously injured person was transferred to the hospital in Niš. Two people were hospitalized in Kuršumlija.

The regional spokesman of the Kosovo police, Sami Mehmeti, said that the group of people who attacked the police officers with stones were clearly under the influence of alcohol and that, after being placed under police control, they were sent back to Serbia via the Merdare crossing. He claims that the Kosovo police officers used pepper spray to calm the situation and bring the group of about 70 people under control.

"We brought back a group known as 'Delias', who are otherwise known as nationalists." In that case, several policemen were injured and mostly they were stone injuries," Kosovo Police Minister Bajram Redzepi told Radio Free Europe. Pristina media reports that 24 police officers were injured.

As RTS learns, the incident occurred when a group traveling by bus to Gazimestan on the occasion of Vidovdan was stopped at the administrative crossing of Merdare by the Kosovo police who tried to send them back. Tanjug reports that 54 Serbs crossed the administrative line at Rudnica and Jarinje early in the morning on Thursday, June 28, heading towards Gazimestan to celebrate Vidovdan. However, the Kosovo police stopped them at the level of Vuchitrn and prevented them from passing further, demanding that they return through the administrative crossing of Merdare, where the conflict occurred. but they directed the bus towards the border crossing. The roadies opposed this, got off the bus and clashed with the police.

According to Mehmeti, a group of people who came to Kosovo from Serbia also threw stones at members of the Kosovo police on the main Ibar bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica, but there were no injuries in this incident.

Molotov cocktails and oysters were thrown at a bus in which Serbs were returning from Gazimestan in the center of Pristina, near the Hotel Viktori, and sixteen Serbs were injured.

The director of the health center in Gračanica, Rada Trajković, told the Beta agency that, according to information from the emergency service of that health center, it was an attack on a bus of school children, aged eight to 16, who were returning from Gazimestan to Gračanica.

She added that 14 students were slightly injured and that they were allowed to go home, while two boys were transferred to the hospital in Gračanica, due to cuts on the head.

There were also incidents during the gathering in Gazimestan, where the Kosovo police detained and then released at least two young men who refused to remove parts of their clothing with national symbols of Serbia. Members of the special unit of the Kosovo Police Service at checkpoints on the approach to Gazimestan prevented all participants from approaching this monument who were wearing T-shirts with the inscriptions "Kosovo is Serbia", "Banjaluka - Republika Srpska", or with the coat of arms of the RS and the inscription "Brothers" , we are with you". About a hundred such T-shirts were confiscated.

KFOR strongly condemned the unacceptable act of violence and welcomed the determination of the competent institutions to conduct a detailed investigation, noting that despite the incident, the situation is currently peaceful and stable.

"This inadmissible act is against the integrity and provision of a safe and peaceful environment for all residents of Kosovo, and this act has no place in the development of modern society," Kfora emphasized in a statement.

In the Albanian village of Dobrosin near Bujanovac, on June 28 at 4:20 a.m., shots were fired at a multi-ethnic police post from the territory of Kosovo. A police officer from Bujanovac, Branislav Marković, was slightly wounded, one projectile grazed his back. The Serbian police requested an urgent investigation from UNMIK. A similar incident happened on May 17. The village of Dobrosin, which has about 150 households and 740 inhabitants, is known for the fact that at the beginning of January 2000, the so-called Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac was created there.