Serbs from Suvi Do upset, police detained two individuals with automatic weapons

The Kosovo police arrested two persons last night in Suvi Do, near Lipljan, for possession of illegal firearms and disturbing the locals, the police station in Gracanica confirmed to Kosovo Online. The arrest followed a report from residents who, last night around 10 PM, reported seeing unknown individuals with firearms near the building.

Today, residents gathered worried about their security in front of the buildings in Suvi Do, and the president of the house council, Mladen Spasic, emphasized that the police action had lasted until morning.

"Last night around 11 PM, a neighbor called me and informed me that his underage son saw an individual moving with an automatic rifle in the village, so I then called other neighbors who also saw everything, and we called the Kosovo Police in Gracanica. Their operation lasted until morning, we saw police vehicles there at the apartment. They informed us that they had arrested two individuals and found two automatic rifles," Spasic stated.

As he pointed out, one of the detained persons is a tenant in Suvi Do, but he moved from Kosovo two years ago and has now returned with another unknown person.

"We gathered here as a form of protest to tell the municipality of Gracanica that in the future, when someone doesn't live in an apartment, various individuals should not be brought in without verification, whether they have a criminal record or not. Because here we had a situation where an individual was moving around and living in the apartment for 20 days, and we didn't know who he was, whether he had a criminal record, or whether he committed any crimes. In the end, it turned out he was moving around with an automatic rifle in the village. You can see that women and children are scared. We moved here in 2019, and the village accepted us nicely, it was a nice and peaceful settlement. Children play here until late at night, until 9-10 PM, when that incident happened, and you can see that parents are scared for the safety of their children, and we hope that such incidents will not happen again," Spasic said.

Svetlana Krsic is a resident of the buildings in Suvi Do with two children, and she emphasizes that the events from last night have disturbed her and the children.

"Considering everything that happened, I am really scared, especially for the children, because they play until late, and now there's a risk if you let a child out of the yard. I don't know what kind of time has come for people to walk around with guns. I don't know how to explain that feeling, and I don't know what specifically happened last night, but it is terrible," she said.

The Deputy Mayor of Gracanica, Igor Aritonovic, accompanied by colleagues and the President of the Temporary Municipal Authority of Lipljan, Milan Joksimovic, visited residents of the buildings in Suvi Do today.

As the Gracanica Municipality confirmed to Kosovo Online, one of the detained persons has a housing contract with the municipality until June 28 but has violated the contract, so the apartment will be taken away from him.

"The contract states that he cannot transfer the apartment and rent it out to someone else. The municipality will terminate the contract with him. 90 days in advance, we issued a statement that we would terminate the contract with him," the municipality said.