Office for Kosovo and Metohija: The ideology behind the Bistrica crime is the same one that still fuels hatred toward Serbs today

On the occasion of the 22nd anniversary of the killing and wounding of Serbian children on the Bistrica River, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija stressed that the ideology behind this crime is the same one that to this day fuels hatred toward Serbs and all other non-Albanians in Kosovo, and which underlies the political actions of Albin Kurti and his terror against the Serbian people. The Office noted that more than two decades later, those responsible for killing and wounding the Serbian children have still not been found.

On that tragic day in 2003, which filled everyone with horror and disbelief, the boys Ivan Jovovic and Pantelija Dakic were killed, four other children were wounded, and, to this day, the perpetrator has not been identified, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija recalled.

“The ideology behind this crime is well known, and it is the same ideology that to this day fuels hatred toward Serbs and all other non-Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, and which underlies the political actions of Albin Kurti and his terror against the Serbian people,” the Office for Kosovo and Metohija warned.

The statement stressed that the crime also involved the covering up of the massacre and the shutting down of the international investigation, allowing the perpetrators, just as in many other cases of attacks on Serbs, to escape punishment and facing justice.

“Our people remember their victims, and on the eve of this anniversary, extremists in uniform, filled with the same hatred, fired bursts of gunfire at Serbian youths in Leposavic, doing so without any condemnation or sanctions. Some of the children wounded on the Bistrica now have children of their own, and that is the best and most eloquent revenge against the ideologues and perpetrators of the campaign to eradicate the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija,” the Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated.

On this day 22 years ago, August 13, 2003, while swimming in the Bistrica River, Serbian children came under a burst of gunfire from still-unknown attackers. Ivan Jovovic (19) and Pantelija Dakic (12) were killed, and Bogdan Bukumiric (14), Marko Bogicevic (12), Dragana Srbljak (13), and Djordje Ugrenovic (20) were seriously wounded.