Kosovska Mitrovica bridge remains closed

Kosovska Mitrovica bridge remains closed

Meanwhile, Kosovo police service detained eight persons after last night’s attack by several Albanians on Aleskandar Ćurčić. They were interviewed and later released.

The incident occurred when three underaged Albanians crossed the bridge and started a brawl with a group of people gathered on the north side of the bridge. The verbal conflict turned into a fight, inflicting light injuries on a Kosovo Serb.

Serb National Council chairman Milan Ivanović said that in his talks with the international community representatives he repeated the Serb demand to keep the bridge closed until the end of the Kosovo status negotiations. “They said they would decide in a few days, until then the bridge remains closed and they take responsibility for whatever happens, meaning whether or not the bridge opens.”

UNMIK Police spokesman told B92 that contrary to previous reports, UNMIK police did intervene. “They reacted at the very start of the fight to protect the victims from sustaining serious injuries”, Larry Miller said.  

The bridge on the Ibar river was opened yesterday, after being closed on August 26, when a bomb was thrown on a café in the Serb part of the town, wounding nine people.

Due to the latest incidents around the bridge in Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbs there will hold a protest rally on October 2.

Fight near Kosovska Mitrovica bridge

A group of Albanians and Serbs got into a fight last night near the bridge which separates them in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Eyewitnesses told Beta that a group of about 15 youths from the southern, Albanian part of the city crossed the bridge to the Serbian part and began to provoke Serbs to fight. A group of young men who regularly hang out near the bridge on the northern side confronted the group of Albanians and a fight broke out.

According to the most recent reports, there were no injuries in the scuffle. Eyewitnesses say that UNMIK and Kosovo Police Service officials intervened very quickly, separated the two groups and made them leave the scene of the fight.

Following the fight, about one hundred Serbian citizens of Kosovska Mitrovica gather at the north side of the bridge and covered the path around it with barbed wire. They are protesting and are asking for the bridge to be closed down again, stating that this incident shows that the city is still not safe.

The bridge across the Ibar River in Kosovska Mitrovica was reopened yesterday after a one-month blockade because of a bombing incident occurring at a café on the Serbian side of the city.