Serbs Commemorate Dead on Anniversary of Kosovo Unrest

The 17th anniversary of ethnically-motivated violence against Serbs in Kosovo on March 17 and 18, 2004 was marked with a televised commemoration at the National Theatre in Belgrade on Wednesday.

The event, entitled 'Remembrance Day on March 17, 2004 - Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija', was broadcast live and attended by just two people - President Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Minister for Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, Darija Kisic Tepavcevic.

 

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Vucic (pictured above) said that the intention of the Kosovo Albanians involved in the violence was that "after March 17 [2004], not only should Serbs no longer be in Kosovo, but there should be nothing they could return to".

During the event, actors read out dramatic texts which were combined with video footage of the violence in 2004.

The unrest erupted five years after Serbian forces pulled out of Kosovo at the end of the 1998-99 war, amid tensions heightened by the shooting of a Serb youth and the drowning of three ethnic Albanian boys, which was falsely claimed to be ethnically-motivated crime.

According to an OSCE report from 2008, 19 people were killed - 11 Kosovo Albanians, eight Kosovo Serbs.

More than 900 people were injured, including 65 international police officers and 58 Kosovo Police Service officers, and more than 800 buildings destroyed or damaged, including 29 Serbian Orthodox churches or monasteries, the OSCE report said.

International courts in Pristina prosecuted several people who attacked churches, handing down jail sentences ranging from 21 months to 16 years.

In other events to mark the...