Minister for Communities and Return Dalibor Jevtic has claimed that Albanians have beaten the only Serb returnee and resident of Oprashke village in Istog, Kosovo.
“In the village of Oprashke in the municipality of Istog/k, where about twenty Serb families once lived, today Petko Miletić – the only Serb returnee and resident of this village – was beaten by Albanians […]. Miletić suffered bodily injuries from two Albanians while preventing illegal cutting of wood on his property, and on that occasion, his mobile phone was stolen,” read a statement posted on the ministry’s website on Friday.
The minister’s statement further claimed that the number of incidents against Serbs in Kosovo has kept increasing, totalling 26 since February, and that “our concern for the survival of Serb returnees is growing with increasing intensity.” It added that “institutional attempts” to protect Serbs “become completely meaningless after each repeated incident.”
The statement accused the Kosovo institutions of “silence and indifference towards security incidents of this kind”, which in turn means that they approve the incidents.
However, the Kosovo police reacted by stating that the minister’s official statement and in his social media were incorrect. They clarified that two people have been detained for attacking Petko Miletić, that they are not of Albanian ethnicity and the incident was not related to ethnicity or returnees.
Many media outlets in Serbia have reported the case with political and nationalistic undertones.
