Trepca Miners Vow to Continue Strike

Around 725 Kosovo Albanian miners in the middle and southern chain of the Trepca mining complex on Thursday decided to continue their strike, announced at 4 pm, around six hours after starting a meeting on Thursday.

They said the strike would continue and they would soon send their full list of requests to the Prime Minister, Isa Mustafa.

The meeting was held to discuss a letter that the miners had received from Mustafa and in which he laid out the reasons for the government's decision on Monday to postpone a vote on the transformation of Trepca.

The letter reportedly said that the government would "not do anything to damage the interests of Trepca and Kosovo.

"We are taking all the legal measures to solve the status of Trepca once and for all," the Prime Minister's letter added.

The strike started early Tuesday following the decision of the government to back out of a deal to transform the mines.

"The miners want the government and parliament? to ratify the law transforming the Trepca complex into a public enterprise in which case the government of Kosovo is the owner," Musa Mustafa, spokesperson for the Trepca miners, told Balkan Insight.

The health of some striking miners has started to deteriorate, since a large number have been on strike for three days in a row now on the 8th "horizon" or level, which is 750 meters underground. Some report difficulties in breathing and high blood pressure. Specialist doctors are down with the miners and monitoring their condition.

The mayor of south Mitrovica, the municipality in which the Stan Terg mines lie, also joined them at one point.

"The situation is becoming more difficult. For a mayor to see his citizens in such a state is...