BBC reporter tells Kosovo-bound "bus tales"

A BBC journalist took two bus rides from Belgrade to two Kosovo towns, to report about some unexpected facts. "Serbian politicians and their Kosovo Albanian counterparts tend to have nothing to do with one another - but at Belgrade's bus station you discover this does not apply to everyone," Patrick Jackson writes. BBC reporter tells Kosovo-bound "bus tales" A bus leaves from Belgrade for Pristina three times a day, "carrying passengers from all ethnic backgrounds", including those who arrived to the Serbian capital "for business or healthcare, family visits or consular services". Some, such as an elderly Albanian traveling with a sick son, "had been receiving treatment for serious conditions, which they could not get in Kosovo". Neither he nor "a Bosnian Muslim in his 40s living in southern Kosovo had a bad word to say about Serbian doctors", the BBC says. Then, the reportered encountered a Serb woman with a fashion shop "in a suburb of Pristina", who was in Belgrade "visiting a foreign embassy to apply for a visa so that she could join her boyfriend, a Bosnian Muslim, in the West". She also had "no bad words", this time for her ethnic Albanian suppliers. Unlike the passengers on the Pristina-bound bus, those the BBC reporter spoke to on another one, traveling to Kosovska Mitrovica, were all Serbs, and not overly accommodating when it came to making statements or having their photographs taken. And while the passengers traveling to Pristina had to provide their ID cards or passports – "many Serbian" – when the bus bound for Kosovska Mitrovica crossed into northern Kosovo, it "flashed past the administrative border – an open barrier manned by a few Serbian policemen – without stopping". As for those who choose to travel in their own car, those with "Kosovan" number plates "cannot enter Serbia and are obliged to attach temporary plates", while "cars with Serbian number plates can circulate in Kosovo, but non-Albanians complain of harassment by police", according to the BBC.

BBC reporter tells Kosovo-bound "bus tales"

A bus leaves from Belgrade for Priština three times a day, "carrying passengers from all ethnic backgrounds", including those who arrived to the Serbian capital "for business or healthcare, family visits or consular services".

Some, such as an elderly Albanian traveling with a sick son, "had been receiving treatment for serious conditions, which they could not get in Kosovo".

Neither he nor "a Bosnian Muslim in his 40s living in southern Kosovo had a bad word to say about Serbian doctors", the BBC says.

Then, the reportered encountered a Serb woman with a fashion shop "in a suburb of Priština", who was in Belgrade "visiting a foreign embassy to apply for a visa so that she could join her boyfriend, a Bosnian Muslim, in the West".

She also had "no bad words", this time for her ethnic Albanian suppliers.

Unlike the passengers on the Priština-bound bus, those the BBC reporter spoke to on another one, traveling to Kosovska Mitrovica, were all Serbs, and not overly accommodating when it came to making statements or having their photographs taken.

And while the passengers traveling to Priština had to provide their ID cards or passports – "many Serbian" – when the bus bound for Kosovska Mitrovica crossed into northern Kosovo, it "flashed past the administrative border – an open barrier manned by a few Serbian policemen – without stopping".

As for those who choose to travel in their own car, those with "Kosovan" number plates "cannot enter Serbia and are obliged to attach temporary plates", while "cars with Serbian number plates can circulate in Kosovo, but non-Albanians complain of harassment by police", according to the BBC.