About 25 NATO peacekeepers protecting three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serbian protesters on Monday as Serbia’s president put the army on the highest alert, News .ro reported.

“While countering the most active elements of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian contingent of KFOR became the targets of unprovoked attacks and received traumatic injuries, including fractures and burns, as a result of the explosion of incendiary devices.” detailed in the KFOR statementthe NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, condemning the violence.

Serbian state broadcaster RTS, citing the Ministry of Defense of Serbia, reported that two Serbs were injured during the clashes.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused her Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vučić of destabilizing Kosovo. “Serbian illegal structures, transformed into criminal gangs, attacked Kosovo police, KFOR (peacekeeping force) officers and journalists. Those carrying out Vucic’s orders to destabilize northern Kosovo must answer to justice,” Osmani wrote on Twitter.

What started the new tension?

The situation has become increasingly tense since ethnic Albanian mayors took office in the Serb-populated northern Kosovo region following elections that were boycotted by the Serbs, prompting the US and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Serbian Armed Forces, has raised the level of combat readiness of the army to the highest level, Defense Minister Milos Vucevich told reporters. “This means that the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Serbia has issued additional instructions on the deployment of army units in specific, defined positions,” Vucevic said, without giving details.

• Read also: Incidents between the police and Serbs in the north of Kosovo / Vucic puts the army on high alert and sends troops to the border

The Serbs, who make up the majority in northern Kosovo, never accepted a 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still claim Belgrade as their capital, two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against the repressive Serbian regime.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo’s entire population, but Serbs in the north have long demanded the implementation of an agreement reached by the EU in 2013 to create an association of autonomous municipalities on their territory.

Serbian protest in the north of Kosovo (Photo: Erkin Keci / AFP / Profimedia)

Serbs refused to participate in local elections in April, and ethnic Albanian candidates won mayoral positions in four Serb-majority municipalities, including Northern Mitrovica, where no incidents were reported on Monday, with a turnout of 3.5%.

Serbs are calling on the Kosovo government to remove ethnic Albanian mayors from city halls and allow local administrations funded by Belgrade to resume their work.

On Friday, police escorted three of the four ethnic Albanian mayors to their offices, pelting them with stones, and the authorities responded by using tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.

Violent clashes in several cities

In Zvechan, one of the towns where Monday’s violence broke out, Kosovo police, staffed by ethnic Albanians after the Serbs left last year, fired tear gas to repel mobs of Serbs who had pushed past a security barricade and tried to force their way in, a witness said. the building of the municipality.

Serbian protesters in Zvechan threw tear gas and stun grenades at NATO soldiers. Serbs also clashed with police in Zvechan and painted NATO vehicles with the letter “Z”, referring to the Russian insignia used during the war in Ukraine.

In Leposavic, near the border with Serbia, American peacekeepers in riot gear surrounded the town hall with barbed wire to protect it from hundreds of angry Serbs.

Later that day, protesters threw eggs at a parked car belonging to the new mayor, Leposavich.

According to eyewitnesses, NATO peacekeepers also blockaded Zubiny Potok’s town hall to protect it from angry local Serbs.

Igor Simic, deputy chairman of List Sârbe, the largest Serbian party in Kosovo, which is backed by Belgrade, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of stoking tensions in the north.

“We are interested in peace. Albanians living here are interested in peace, and only he (Kurti) wants to create chaos,” Simic told reporters in Zvechan.

The USA reprimanded Pristina

The United States and its allies, which have strongly backed Kosovo’s independence, rebuked Pristina on Friday, saying that imposing mayors in Serb-majority areas without popular support undermined efforts to normalize relations.

Kurti defended Pristina’s position, writing on Twitter after a phone call with the European Union’s foreign policy chief at the weekend: “I stressed that the elected mayors will deliver services to all citizens.”

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS that “it is impossible to have mayors elected by non-Serbs in municipalities with a Serbian majority.”

US Ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenir told reporters after meeting with Albin Kurti: “We are concerned about today’s reports of violence against official property. We saw images of graffiti on KFOR and police cars, we heard about attacks on journalists, we condemn it, it is an inadequate response.”

Clashes between Serbian protesters and law enforcement agencies in northern Kosovo (Photo: Erkin Keci / AFP / Profimedia)