Ethnic Serb gunmen in armored vehicles stormed a village in north Kosovo on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that killed four people.
The siege centered on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged.
A group of Kosovo Serbs positioned trucks on a bridge into the village, shooting at police who approached them, before the battle moved to the nearby monastery, according to accounts by both Kosovo police and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
The gunmen had left the monastery by night, the Serbian Orthodox Church said, though it was unclear where they went.
Vucic said the action was a rebellion against Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who has refused to form an association of Serb municipalities in north Kosovo. “Serbia will never recognize independent Kosovo, you can kill us all,” he said.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The siege centered on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged.
The head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Caroline Ziadeh, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the violence.
Serbs in north Kosovo have long demanded the implementation of a EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
E.U.-sponsored talks on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo stalled last week, with the bloc blaming Kurti for failing to set up the association.
Serbia still formally deems Kosovo to be part of its territory, but denies suggestions of whipping up strife within its neighbor’s borders.
Unrest intensified when ethnic Albanian mayors took office in north Kosovo after April elections the Serbs boycotted.
The original article contains 408 words, the summary contains 138 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
