Kosovo police report provocations by Serbia

15 October, 2024 Unknown who crossed the dividing line between Kosovo and Serbia. October 2024. Photo: Kosovo Police

Unidentified persons violated the dividing line at the border crossing point between Kosovo and Serbia. The Kosovo police said that the provocation took place at the Merdare checkpoint. On October 14, in the evening, a Land Rover SUV that entered from the Serbian side violated the dividing line.

"There were four members of the Serbian gendarmerie in it, who stayed there for about ten minutes," Kosovo police said. According to Kosovo, they crossed the dividing line to make a provocation or "create an incident."

Unidentified persons who crossed the dividing line between Kosovo and Serbia. October 2024.

Photo: Kosovo Police

"The Kosovo Police requests the relevant international bodies to take the necessary measures to maintain stability and mutual respect for the agreements on integrated border management and security in general," the press release stated. All border crossings between Kosovo and Serbia reopened only on September 7 after the blockade by Serbian activists ended. The reopening of the border crossings came after Serbian organizations lifted all blockades that had been set up to protest the closure of institutions supporting ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo.

Kosovar Serbs and their Serbian supporters began blocking access to northern Kosovo at three crossing points on September 6, and the protest continued on September 7.

Photo: RSE

Kosovar authorities claimed that masked men were at the Brniak crossing point, prompting the closure of that checkpoint and the larger one in Merdara. Kosovo is a partially recognized state on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe. Ukraine does not recognize Kosovo's independence.

According to the Serbian constitution, the territory of the Republic of Kosovo is part of Serbia - it is the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, but in fact, Kosovo is not controlled by the Serbian authorities. Amid the war in the Balkans, the Kosovo War broke out in 1998 between Albanian rebels and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In March 1999, NATO countries intervened in the conflict.

As a result of the war, the province came under UN control.

KFOR forces and a Kosovo special forces unit on the administrative border with Serbia. September 2021.

Photo credits: Kosovar media

To this day, various conflicts and provocations continue in the region.

In 2023, in Kosovo, law enforcement officers neutralized an armed group with Serbian weapons.