10,000 displaced Kosovo Serbs protest

10,000 displaced Kosovo Serbs protest

The organizers of the protest said Tuesday that as many as 12,000 IDPs were expected to come to prove to the UN mission that their return was not possible, even though the UN Resolution 1244 instructed the opposite.

"People keep arriving, with their own cars, with buses, and, as we have said, we expect there to be some 12,000 during the day,"  Goran Savović, deputy head of the association of expelled and displaced from Kosovo said  earlier today.

Zoran Savić from Prizren, now living in Rušanj near Belgrade, said that he would come back to his hometown of Prizren provided he was given guarantees he might lead a normal life there.

Julijana Mladenović (43) who used to live in the town of Istok said her house was destroyed one year after KFOR came to Kosovo when she and her family were forced to leave.

Kosovo Serbs protest in Belgrade

Some 70 members of the association of the families of the kidnapped and murdered Kosovo Serbs gathered outside the government building in Belgrade Thursday demanding to meet prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, president Boris Tadić or any member of the UN fact-finding mission.

The UN delegation was ushered in through the back entrance to evade contact with the crowd.

Gathered protesters then blocked both entries into the building so as to meet the UN mission members on their way out.

They are holding banners with the pictures of their cousins that were killed or went missing, as well as a large banner that reads “Serb generals go to the Hague, while Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders get their own state. Why?”

One of the protesters said that Kosovo Serbs wanted to know what happened to the missing members of their families, adding that their number totaled 650.

“We have no idea what has become of our loved ones,” she added.