Mitrovica

Ministry of Culture of the Temporary Pristina Institutions, in its campaign of appropriating the material and spiritual heritage of the Serbian Orthodox Church, started the alleged "renovation" of the Orthodox church in the village of Gornje Vinarce, seven kilometers from Mitrovica, on the north side of the Ibar River, it was announced on the Facebook page of the City of Mitrovica.

Northern Kosovo was hit by fresh violence on Tuesday after police arrested Kosovo Serb Milun 'Lune' Milenkovic on suspicion of orchestrating attacks against NATO peacekeepers at the end of May, testing international efforts to de-escalate tensions.

Testifying via video link from Serbia at Pristina Basic Court on Friday, Milena Popovic, the widow of murdered Kosovo Serb opposition politician Oliver Ivanovic, said her husband did not voice any concerns about his safety before he was shot dead in the north of the ethnically-divided city of Mitrovica in January 2018.

One day after new Albanian mayors took their oaths of office in Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo, violence erupted between local Serbs and the police as locals attempted to stop the new mayors from entering their municipal buildings.

BELGRADE - Former North Mitrovica Mayor Milan Radojevic said on Monday the situation in the north of Kosovo-Metohija was extremely difficult and that this had especially been the case since local Serbs left Pristina's institutions last November, and noted that no one in the international community was concerned about when Pristina's PM Albin Kurti would stop a repression against the Serbs.

The newly elected mayor of the Kosovo-Serb majority municipality of North Mitrovica took his oath of office on Friday in a tense atmosphere following extraordinary local elections a month ago that most local Serbs shunned. 

Erden Atic is a member of the ruling Vetvendosje party, which has few members in the town.

The 19th anniversary of ethnically-motivated violence against Serbs in Kosovo on March 17 and 18, 2004 was marked in the Serb-majority north of the divided city of Mitrovica and in the town of Gracanica.

In Montenegro, heavy rain in the towns of Pljevlja, Mojkovac and Rozaje blocked roads due to rising water levels and landslides. The Interior Ministry said its Protection and Rescue Office was in constant communication with local authorities, adding that the army is on standby if the situation worsens.

While the number of missing persons being identified has stagnated in recent years, the issue is increasingly hitting the headlines in both Kosovo and Serbia.

It is "difficult to estimate when exactly implementation will begin", Igor Markovic of the Mitrovica-based NGO Aktiv told BIRN about Saturday's verbal agreement between Kosovo and Serbia on crossing borders using only IDs.