Kosovo Serb returnee property vandalized
Unknown perpetrators have vandalized housing structures given to Kosovo Serb returnees near Prizren, in the south of the province.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, April 13, 2009
They targeted housing containers and another building given to the Serbs by the Kosovo Albanian government's ministry in charge of returns, breaking the windows and doors.
The Serbs were previously exiled from their homes in the village of Zivnjane.
The containers, meant as temporary housing until the Serbs' destroyed homes have been rebuilt, were empty at the time of the attack, since the returnees had decided to spend the winter in IDP centers in central Serbia.
Vekoslav Petrovic said he and other returnees have been notified about the incident, and were also told that the thieves took their clothes, beds and mattresses.
"We see the way in which those thieves, or someone else, did all this as a clear message that we should not return to our homes," Petrovic said.
He stressed that the latest incident was difficult for the Serbs, whose village - the oldest Serb settlement in the Sredacka Zupa area - was burned to the ground in 1999.
"No thieves or vandals breaking in will prevent us to, in the coming days, return and participate in the rebuilding of our homes," Petrovic concluded.
