Ethnic Serbs caught in the crossfire amid Kosovo-Serbia voting row
Ethnic Serbs in Kosovo have been left frustrated amid renewed tensions between Serbia and the government in Pristina.
They were sparked last week when Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti refused to allow Serbia to organise voting for its presidential and parliamentary elections on Kosovan territory.
The tensions were visible in the Kosovo flashpoint city of Mitrovica, some 40 kilometres north of Kosovo’s capital Pristina. Mitrovica is divided between the Kosovo Albanian south and the predominantly ethnic Serb north and has been a scene of clashes between the two sides in the years since the Kosovo war ended in 1999.
Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, declared independence from Belgrade in 2008. Serbia doesn't recognise this and continues to treat Kosovo as if it were under its sovereignty despite a decade of EU-mediated talks between the two sides.
Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kurti’s move has been widely criticised by the US, Germany, UK, France and Italy, worried about a potential spillover of the conflict in an area where Russia has sought to establish its influence. Serbia’s pro-Russian government has for years nurtured close political and economic ties with Russia and in recent years the country has received weapons.
“We hope it will be peaceful, always and forever. No one needs a war, absolutely no one,” said one Kosovo Serb.
Hundreds of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo have protested the government’s decision. Kurti has argued his decision defends Kosovo's sovereignty.
According to Kurti, Serbia has failed to ask authorities for permission to organise the vote.
“Serbia’s illegal structures are trying to organise the elections in our territory as if our government did not exist,” he told the EU’s top official in Kosovo last
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