"Stop the violence". About 25 members of the force led by NATO (KFOR) were injured on Monday May 29 during clashes in northern Kosovo, where Serb demonstrators are demanding the withdrawal of Albanian mayors, announced KFOR (La Force pour Kosovo) in a statement.
Barely out of his first meeting at Roland-Garros, where he easily eliminated the American of Serbian origin Aleksandar Kovacevic, Novak Djokovic wanted to send a message, which was variously appreciated. At the end of his match, he wrote on the camera lens these words in Cyrillic: “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence. “His position divided his fans on social networks, some of whom denounced a provocation on the part of the tennis player.
Djokovic wrote "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia! Stop violence" on the camera after his win today at
Thirty members of the international force led by NATO in Kosovo (KFOR) were injured on Monday in clashes with Serb demonstrators who are demanding the departure of Albanian mayors, Belgrade reporting dozens of wounded among the protesters. For several days, the situation has been very tense in the north of Kosovo, where many members of the Serb community, which is the majority in four towns in this region, do not recognize the authority of Pristina and are loyal to Belgrade.
The Serbs boycotted the April municipal elections in these localities, which resulted in the election of Albanian mayors with a turnout of less than 3.5%. These city councilors were enthroned last week by the government of Albin Kurti, the Prime Minister of this territory largely populated by Albanians, ignoring the calls for appeasement launched by the European Union and the United States. .
The Serb protesters, who gathered in particular in front of the town hall of Zvecan, demanded the withdrawal of the Albanian city councilors but also of the Kosovo police forces, which they came up against. KFOR soldiers, armed with shields and sticks, initially tried to separate the two sides before starting to disperse the crowd, an Agence France-Presse journalist reported.
Protesters responded by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers before being pushed back several hundred meters from Zvecan town hall.
In Italy, violence against KFOR soldiers was condemned by Giorgia Meloni. Italy's Prime Minister on Monday evening expressed her "strongest condemnation" after the "absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible" attack on the KFOR mission, in which "Italian soldiers were injured".
These attacks were described as "totally unacceptable" by NATO in Brussels. At least 52 Serbs were injured in the incidents, three of them seriously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in Belgrade, adding that a 50-year-old man was shot and wounded by Kosovo police "special forces". Serbia has never recognized the independence proclaimed in 2008 by its former province and tensions regularly erupt between Belgrade and Pristina. Some 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, which has a total population of 1.8 million, overwhelmingly Albanian.
