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Gunmen in armored vehicles stormed a village in an ethnic Serbian-majority region of northern Kosovo on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the region.
Kosovo police said one officer was killed and three of about 30 attackers died in shootouts around the village of Banjska, Reuters reported.
Monks and pilgrims were locked in the Serbian Orthodox monastery’s temple as the siege raged for hours, according to the report.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the assailants opened fire on a police patrol at 3 a.m. Sunday in Banjska, some 55 kilometers north of the capital of Pristina.
“The attackers are professionals wearing masks and heavily armed,” Kurti said in a statement on Facebook. Kurti and Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani described the shooting as a terrorist attack and blamed neighboring Serbia for seeking to destabilize their country.
“Organized crime, which is politically, financially and logistically supported from Belgrade, is attacking our state,” Kurti said.
The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo said it has troops in the area and is ready to respond if required, the BBC reported. NATO troops, the EU police force EULEX and Kosovo police were patrolling the road to Banjska, Reuters reported.
Kosovo police said that two trucks without license plates had blocked off the bridge leading to the village in the early hours of Sunday. Upon arrival, police units had been targeted with an “arsenal of firearms,” including hand grenades, it said.
The Serbian Orthodox Church Diocese of Raska-Prizren said masked men forced their way into the monastery near Banjska, accordng to media reports. Priests and pilgrims locked themselves inside the monastery’s temple for safety, the diocese said, adding that gunfire was occasionally heard and that the armed men were moving around the monastery’s courtyard, according to the reports.
Kosovo and Serbia have long been at odds over the rights of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo’s north. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia doesn’t recognize that.
Tensions have increased following elections earlier this year in four Serb-majority municipalities, which were effectively boycotted by Kosovo Serbs. Violent clashes erupted following the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors. Brussels has been critical of the way Kosovo handled the elections.
Earlier this month, Osmani told POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast that Kosovo is ready to hold new elections.
But, she added, “The problem remains that the Serb community that lives in the north, which is just one-third of the Serbs that actually live in Kosovo, have been effectively intimidated by people who are paid, supported, and incited by President Vučić of Serbia.”
