Jevtic with residents of Donje Bitinje: People are understandably disturbed, we will also talk to KFOR

The President of the Municipality of Strpce, Dalibor Jevtic, held a meeting today with representatives of the village of Donja Bitinja regarding the events of March 9th when an Albanian from the municipality of Suva Reka fired a gun and placed a wreath on the house of a Serb in that village.

The representatives of Donja Bitinja expressed their concern to Jevtic about this incident, and one of them, Lazar Ivanovic, stated that certain steps needed to be taken to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.

"The residents of the village of Donja Bitinja are very upset, scared, and concerned about the events of March 9th. Fortunately, no one was injured, and no one was present at the time. We have conveyed our demands to the mayor. After all, it is a multi-ethnic village where Serbs and Albanians live, so such incidents should not occur, let alone more severe ones. We have informed the mayor and communicated our demands, and we hope that this will not happen again. We have had fair and respectful relations with our Albanian neighbors and have not encountered any major problems," Ivanovic said.

Jevtic emphasized that the residents were rightfully concerned, and it was necessary to take preventive action to avoid further problems and escalation of the situation. After the meeting, Jevtic stated that the incident in Donja Bitinja had upset all residents of the Municipality of Strpce and highlighted that he believed it was a consequence of the lack of preventive action following the events of January 6th last year when Stefan and Milos Stojanovic were injured.

"Today, we discussed with the village representatives what we can do to prevent further problems or escalation of the situation and what we can collectively demand from the institutions responsible for security. I have informed the village representatives in detail about what the Municipality can do in this situation, invited them to attend tomorrow's meeting of the Community Safety Committee, where we will make certain conclusions and demands institutionally, and I believe that during the meeting, we will have the opportunity to hear some details about the incident from representatives of the Kosovo Police," Jevtic said.

He said that the residents were rightfully concerned, and it was unknown what the reaction would be if the person who had fired the shots were to appear in the village, causing residents to react without knowing what the individual was capable of and what he might do next.

"That's why it's necessary to take preventive action, and that will be our main demand to the institutions that must do something about this issue. We are concerned by the fact that there was no information, no news in the Albanian media when this happened. It seems to me that there is an attempt to cover up the whole situation, not to talk about it in the way it is being done, just like with the case of Milos and Stefan Stojanovic, and that is precisely the main problem. When there is no adequate response from the institutions, when there is no raising of awareness in the public when such and similar problems arise, then you have a situation where someone thinks it's okay to do something like this, and that's what needs to be prevented," Jevtic said.

He added that for this reason, he had spoken and continued to speak about it at the assembly regarding the case of Stefan and Milos Stojanovic, and had also written about it in his annual report because if there was no awareness, it gave someone the impression that they could do such things.

He emphasized that the Municipality of Strpce and he personally would continue to work together with the residents in the coming period to raise awareness and take preventive action.

"I am confident that we will seek increased police presence, and I will also speak with representatives of KFOR, knowing their level of presence in our municipality. We will do everything we can to ensure that tomorrow no one can use the excuse that we didn't tell them, or that we didn't point out the issue. We will not leave room for any excuses. It is clear to me that politically, this is a result of the current policies of the regime in Pristina, but that does not mean that we should remain silent and withdraw because of it. Everyone should be assured that on this issue, we will not be silent, that we will raise our voice and demand the protection of our citizens' lives," Jevtic said.

Following the meeting of the President of the Municipality with representatives of the residents of the village of Donja Bitinja, a meeting of the Municipality of Strpce leadership was held where the views regarding the events of March 9 were supported.