Before Kosovo police begin their patrols along the border with Serbia, they load their vehicle with weaponry: AK-47s are strapped to the back seats of the car, pistols are tucked into the front seats, at their feet, and drones and anti-bullet vests are placed in the Land Rover’s trunk.
This is now the standard protocol in one of the most unstable borders in the European continent, reports the prestigious British media outlet “The Telegraph”.
When asked about the situation, Venton Elshani, deputy commander of the police in northern Kosovo, simply shows the preparations made for patrol. “See the weapons?” he said, before sending the Telegraph team to the border, “these are for keeping the officers safe. The situation is not good”.
Since Kosovo gained independence from Yugoslavia in a war that ended in 1999, in the northern part of the country, which is a border region, a small ethnic Serbian community has remained. Tensions with the ethnic Albanian majority have recently escalated. Aleksandar Vucic, the president of Serbia, has hinted at intervention – nationalists urge him to “protect” the Serbs forced to live under Kosovo’s rule.
The fear of a new war increased in 2023 when an armed group of Serbs attacked beyond the border in the northern village of Banjska and barricaded themselves in its monastery. Three out of 30 suspected militants were killed in a gunfire exchange. One of Commander Elshani’s men lost his life in the exchange of fire.
Since that day, he and his team have conducted daily patrols in the border region dominated by Serbs, seeking illegal routes to Serbia similar to those used by the armed individuals in their attack.
“We know these roads better than anyone,” Commander Elshani told “The Telegraph” as their patrol traversed the mountainous terrain.
Source: Botasot.net
