A Kosovar court based in the Netherlands sentenced a former Kosovar independence fighter Tuesday to 18 years in prison for murdering one person and detaining and torturing dozens of others at a makeshift prison at a factory during the Kosovo-Serbia war, Radio Free Europe reported. Pjëter...
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Responding to a request from Serbia for a boycott, only around 1 percent of the ethnic Serb voters in the towns of Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Svecan, and North Mitrovica in the tiny Balkan country of Kosovo turned out last week to cast ballots in a...
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Kosovar police and ethnic Serb gunmen clashed in Kosovo’s restive northern region this week, a deadly skirmish that killed at least four people and is likely to stir up tensions between Pristina and neighboring Serbia, Reuters reported Monday. On Sunday, gunmen attacked the village of Banjska,...
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Kosovo declared independence in 2008, around a decade after NATO bombed Serbian forces who were brutalizing the ethnic Albanian communities in the formerly Serb region. It’s one of the final chapters of the tragic, bloody breakup of communist Yugoslavia in the 1990s. But ethnic Serbians living...
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Western powers urged ethnic Serbs and Albanians to stop fighting in northern Kosovo after dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured in skirmishes with protesters this week, prompting concerns of a wider conflict in the Balkan country, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. NATO officials said 30 of...
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Kosovo police and ethnic Serbs clashed in the northern town of Zvecan over the weekend, unrest that prompted condemnation from the West and Russia, and threatens to ignite ethnic tensions in the predominately Albanian country, Politico reported. The clashes began after crowds of ethnic Serbs blocked...
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The former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, and other prominent politicians who were leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are now on trial at a special court in the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As BalkanInsight explained, prosecutors say that Thaci and...
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Late last year, Serbia and Kosovo, the former Serbian territory whose majority ethnic Albanian citizens declared independence in 2008 less than a decade after a bloody war to achieve just that, looked as if they were on the verge of conflict again, the Economist wrote. The...
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A Netherlands-based tribunal has sentenced a former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla commander to 26 years in prison, the first war crimes conviction by the special court, which was established to investigate crimes during the 1998-99 independence war with Serbia, Radio Free Europe reported. The Kosovo...
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Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement this week to end a long-running dispute over vehicle license plates, which had prompted fears over a potential ethnic conflict breaking out again in the Balkans, Al Jazeera reported Thursday. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, announced the agreement...
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Officials from Kosovo’s Serbian minority resigned en masse this week to protest the government’s implementation of new vehicle license plates requirements, a move that has stoked tensions between the small Balkan nation and neighboring Serbia, Al Jazeera reported Saturday. The mass resignations saw the departure of...
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Kosovo’s government delayed the implementation of new border rules for ethnic Serbs living in the country’s north, following a series of protests that risked flaring up ethnic tensions in the small Balkan nation, Euronews reported Monday. Ethnic Serbs blocked traffic at two border crossings between Serbia...
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