Bus carrying Serbs attacked with stones in Kosovo

Bus carrying Serbs attacked with stones in Kosovo

DJAKOVICA -- Ethnic Albanians in Djakovica on Tuesday attacked with stones a bus carrying some 40 Serb refugees from this Kosovo town.

The incident happened in front of a Serbian Orthodox church.

The driver of the bus was lightly injured during the attack, Djokica Stanojevic, who heads an association of displaced Djakovica citizens, told Tanjug.

He explained that the incident happened despite the police escort that was provided to the Serbs.

The attack took place on Orthodox Christmas Eve.

"Once again this year we have not been able to burn the badnjak (ceremonial Christmas oak branches) in the town from which we have been driven out. At the very entrance to the church a group of Albanians waited with stones that they pelted at the bus," Stanojevic explained.

"We turned back, unable to carry the badnjak into the church," he said.

Stanojevic strongly condemned the incident, noting it was not the first of the kind, and asked for "urgent condemnation and reaction of the international community" - so that Serbs displaced from Djakovica could exercise their basic human rights - the right to live, return, move freely, and confess their religion.