One police officer killed and another injured in a night of violence in Kosovo

2023-09-24 11:13:01

The “vigilant calm” that authorities from the Kosovo Interior Ministry referred to this newspaper has been suddenly cut short on this Saturday night, in a confusing incident of great violence that has so far resulted in one Kosovar police officer dead and another injured at the hands of a group of armed people. The group, whose number of members and affiliation is still unknown, has attacked 15 kilometers from the border with Serbia in the area of Mitrovica North, in the population of Banjskaas reported by international agencies and confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO by Kosovar government sources.

Peace does not last long in that strategic point of the Balkans. A police patrol was attacked after 3 a.m. local time upon arriving in Banjska. They were waiting for them at the entrance to the town. two trucks blocking a bridge and finally an ambushReuters has reported.

According to the first information that has emerged from the attack, the police have been shot with assault rifles, grenades and even personal rocket launchers by a group that – reports the Kosovo newspaper KOHA – has refugee in a monastery orthodox of the town.

He prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, has confirmed the participation of this weapon, and has spread on Facebook that “professionals” who are “masked and heavily armed” have participated in the attack, so a purely criminal motivation could begin to be ruled out. “No criminal gang operates in that area without prior political permission,” an advisor to the Kosovo government tells this newspaper.

The troops of the NATO KFOR mission are on alert. American and European Union soldiers They participate together with Kosovar police in cordoning off and patrolling around the Banjska monastery.

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The US embassy in Pristina issued a statement this Sunday in which it condemned the “orchestrated and violent attack” and reaffirmed its support for the authority of the Kosovo government over the northern part of the republic, populated mainly by Kosovo Serbs.

The president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmanistates in another statement that the attack is “orchestrated by Serbian criminal gangs,” and calls the shooting “open aggression by Serbia.”