UN steps up police presence in Kosovo after Serb killings

The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) today tightened security in the Albanian-majority province, stepping up police patrols on the streets of Serb enclaves after gunmen killed two Serbs and injured two others over the weekend.

According to a UN spokesperson in New York, UNMIK’s Police Commissioner, Kai Vittrup, said in a press conference yesterday that he considers the incident an isolated one that should not be seen as a first step in future terror attacks against minorities, and added that at this stage of the investigation, the ethnicity of the suspects was unknown.

At the crime scene near Strpce/Shterpce yesterday, UNMIK Chief Søren Jessen-Petersen called for an end to speculation surrounding the shooting and appealed to the political leaders in Kosovo and in Serbia to give the police time to carry out a thorough investigation of the incident.

The UN has run the province since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) drove out Yugoslav troops amid grave human rights abuses in fighting between majority Albanians and Serbs in 1999.