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On the night of September 24, another escalation between the local Serbs and Albanian forces took place in Kosovo and Metohija.
A shootout between the Kosovo security forces and unknown gunmen broke out in the village of Banska. Albanian sources claimed that the attackers were Serbs from “criminal structures”. The police reportedly tried to stop two Serbian trucks with some contraband, after which a shootout began. The shooting began after an attempt to stop two trucks without license plates, which allegedly entered the region, despite the ban on the import of Serbian products. However, the “President of Kosovo” claims that there are “people in uniform and in armored vehicles” in the north of Kim.
KFOR has been activated and took positions in the north of the region.
According to the Albanian side claims that as a result, one policeman was killed, and two more were wounded. The Kosovo prime minister said that the attackers acted with the support of Belgrade.
The police of the partially recognized republic announced on the evening of September 24 that three attackers were killed, five more, including accomplices of the attackers, were detained.
On the evening of September 24, President of Serbia Alexander Vucic made an emergency appeal to the nation in connection with the events in Kosovo and Metohija. He confirmed that three Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija were killed, two from sniper fire. Two more were heavily wounded and there are fears that another person has died.
“According to the information we have, it has been confirmed that three Serbs were killed in Kosovo and Metohija. Two probably from sniper fire when they didn’t need to be eliminated. Two were seriously injured, there are fears that a fourth person was also killed,” Vucic said.
He outlined the Serbian vision of the situation. According to him, a group of Serbs in the village of Banska set up barricades of two trucks. After the Kosovo police came to remove them, a conflict began, in which a policeman died.
“The Kosovo Serbs installed two trucks as barricades, the “Kosovo police” tried to remove them. It came to a collision, during a shootout, one policeman was killed.
I have warned many times both in New York and in Brussels that this could happen… It happened. The Serbs rebelled. They don’t want to endure the terror of the Kurti anymore.
I cannot justify the murder of an Albanian policeman, it is reprehensible and was not necessary for the Serbs… But what happened next? In just an hour and a half, the Serbs were completely surrounded, they were brutally attacked. KFOR peacekeepers had to take responsibility for solving the situation.”
The escalation was not limited to the shoutout on the road. On the same day, masked armed men in armored vehicles broke into the monastery of Banska. Priests and believers from the Serbian city of Novi Sad, among whom there were children, hided in one of the buildings. Shots were reported in the sanctuary. Then the unknown men left the monastery. Vucic said that they were looking for two wounded young men from the village who came to the monastery for help.
The Serbian president noted that the region should “form an association of Serbian municipalities, deploy Serbian police officers” in the north of Kosovo in order to prevent the expulsion of Serbs from there. “We call on our people for peace and restraint,” Vucic stressed.
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Since the morning of September 24, the north of Kosovo and Metohija has been “occupied” by police and special forces. They block roads, inspect Serbian cars. Banska was surrounded.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo Kurti claims that about “30 armed Serbs from paramilitary formations” dispersed in the monastery and surrounding houses. And the President of the self-proclaimed republic claims that “armed men in armored vehicles penetrated 15 km deep into the region.”
The security operations continues. The special forces are storming the monastery of Banska and searching houses of Serbs.
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The US Embassy immediately sided with the Albanians, as well as the Ambassador of Germany, OSCE, EU Special Representative, as well as a British MP and an Albanian lobbyist Alicia Kearns.
Representatives of KFOR did not stop the operation of the police of partially recognized Kosovo against local Serbs, thereby giving a “carte blanche” for their murder, Vucic claimed.
Providing no credible evidences, the Albanian side claims that armed men speak in Serbian and Russian languages. After the Ukrainian counter offensive was stuck and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh was resolved through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers, the West gave Pristina the green light for escalation and ethnic cleansing with the use of force.
