Serbs in Kosovo town "move more freely"
7 September 2009 | 18:10 | Source: B92 LIPLJAN -- Serbs in the Kosovo town of Lipljan have lived and moved "more freely for some years", our reporter says. But they still face robberies and vandalism directed at their property. The latest case of illegal trespassing and destruction of property happened to Serb Milorad Milosavljević, whose house is located in a neighborhood dominated by ethnic Albanians. The family has not lived in the house for several years. Milorad says that each time he starts repairing the doors and windows, someone destroys it all overnight. "We've reported it to police, they came a few times, always telling us we're the most annoying people, that we keep calling them, and you can see for yourselves what they did to it [the house], the chaos and debris." "They come in as they please, dig around, throw garbage in the yard, make a mess. Just now police asked me, 'do you suspect someone', and for the first time I said I suspected my neighbors," he said. Police investigations of the scene have not helped the family to find out who was vandalizing their property, and Milorad believes there's only one motive behind the incidents. "They're all Albanians. All this around here was Serb, a couple of houses across the street were Albanian. However, now only my Serb house remains unsold, and they likely want to buy it for a change," he believes. The first attack on the house happened during the March 17, 2004, pogrom of the Serbs in the province. Milorad was in the house with his wife, child and parents. "On March 17, the first rock was thrown through the window. There was a bed by the window, luckily my parents did not sleep in it, they were in another room. The rock landed on the bed." Until the 1999 war in Kosovo, some 6,000 Serbs lived in Lipljan. Today, there are about a thousand, most of them in one street that leads to their church. Those houses have not come under attack recently, says our reporter. The Serbs here are more relaxed, with one of them, Momčilo Miljković, deciding to build a store. "My children have no jobs, my son, my daughter-in-law have no jobs, my other son is a student, I must make a living, and so I invested all I had to open a store, so that we can survive, " he said. Neither Momčilo nor Milorad intend to leave the town with their families. Milorad is also unemployed, but he makes ends meet by producing "objects of art", our reporter concluded.
