Kosovo online: Serb schools in northern Kosovo suspend work amid tensions

BELGRADE, December 12 – RIA Novosti. Basic (primary and secondary) and secondary (private secondary) Serbian schools in the north of Kosovo and Metohija suspended their work from Monday due to tensions in the province, transmits Kosovo online portal.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic convened the National Security Council in Belgrade on Sunday evening. He convened the Security Council after the self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, urged the NATO KFOR contingent to remove the edges of the Kosovo Serbs’ barricades from roads in the north, and threatened it if refused. Kosovo security forces under NATO command were ready to carry out the operation themselves.

Goran Rakic, head of the Serbian List, the largest party of local Serbs, said Kosovo Serbs, who have set up barricades due to Pristina’s actions, will form a crisis headquarters in the north of the province. He had previously called on Kosovo Serbs to maintain peace and calm and allow EU Rule of Law (EULEX) and NATO KFOR missions to pass through roadblocks on highways in the north of the province.

“Due to the current situation in the north of Kosovo, primary and secondary schools operating in the education system of the Republic of Serbia will not be able to operate from tomorrow. It is currently unknown how long the educational institutions in the north of Kosovo will last. The region will remain closed,” the portal cites its own sources.

Fighters of the special unit of the “Ministry of the Interior” of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo occupied a facility at the Gazivode dam on Sunday, raising Serbian flags and deploying Serbian guards. This is the main source of water and accumulation for the hydroelectric power station located here, most of the lake is located in the predominantly Serb-inhabited municipality of Zubin Potok, like the other three regions in the north of the region.

Kosovo Serbs set up barricades on highways in the north of the region on Saturday after the self-proclaimed republic’s Interior Ministry former police officer Dejan Pantic was arrested by Kosovo Albanian authorities. Pantić, who resigned in November along with other Serbian police officers from the Interior Ministry units in the northern province of the province, was detained on suspicion of “terrorism” at the Yarina checkpoint as he entered central Serbia on Saturday.

The situation at the highway barricades in northern Kosovo, where local Serbs spent the night in tents protesting Pristina’s moves, was peaceful but tense on Sunday. The self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo police, the Yarine checkpoint and the Brnjak checkpoint, blocked cars and pedestrians from entering the area from central Serbia to the north of the area.