Persecution of Serbs

"Holy Fire" taken to monasteries in Kosovo

BELGRADE -- The Holy Fire, which arrived in Belgrade ahead of Orthodox Easter Sunday from Jerusalem, was on Monday taken to Kosovo and Metohija.

The fire, which believers consider to be a miracle, will be taken to the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC) monasteries in Gracanica and Decani, and then the Pec Patriarchate.

BELGRADE - President of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in Serbia Miodrag Linta has said on the occasion of 74 years since the proclamation of the quisling Independent State of Croatia (NDH) that Croatian society had failed to face its past and had never acknowledged committing genocide against Serbs during WWII.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic will pay an official one-day visit to Vatican on April 17, where he will confer with supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Francis.

President Nikolic and Pope Francis will discuss the topics of mutual importance to the two countries, including the situation in Kosovo-Metohija and current international issues.

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the Belgrade city authorities have repeated promises that a memorial at the largest Nazi concentration camp in the region will be built next year.

A government headcount has verified that more than 25,000 people fought for the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbian forces during the 1998-99 conflict - more than previously estimated.

BELGRADE - The Association of Families of the Kidnapped and Murdered in Kosovo and Metohija (KiM) said Friday that it will press charges before the domestic and international courts against the persons responsible for the crimes against Serbs and non-Albanians in KiM before and after 1999.

Retired general and former lawmaker Glavas was released from prison, where he was being held on remand while awaiting retrial for alleged war crimes against Serbs.

A verdict convicting nine former Serbian fighters of killing more than 118 Albanians near the Kosovo town of Pec/Peja in 1999 was annulled and the case sent for retrial.

BELGRADE - Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) member of the parliament Milovan Drecun said on Thursday, commenting on the arrest of 8 people suspected of war crimes against Muslims in Srebrenica, that the SNS wanted all the war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia investigated.

BELGRADE - The exhibition by the Gallery of Frescoes of the National Museum in Belgrade entitled "Serbia - the Land of Frescoes" has opened in Svetosavski dom (St. Sava Hall).

The visitors will have a chance to get to know or remind themselves of a cultural monument of exceptional importance - the Church of Our Lady of Ljevis located in Prizren, Kosovo-Metohija.