Radojevic: Mayor of South Mitrovica misused children for political purposes, fuels hatred among youth

Today’s activity organized by the Mayor of South Mitrovica constitutes a serious disregard for the Municipality of North Mitrovica, as well as direct interference in municipal competences clearly defined by law, according to a statement issued by the Mayor of North Mitrovica, Milan Radojevic.

He stated that such actions in no way represent a path toward reconciliation between communities; on the contrary, they point to the misuse of children for political purposes, which is unacceptable.

“At the same time, numerous questions remain to which the public rightly expects answers: what about the thousands of Serbs expelled from the southern part of the city? What about the desecrated Orthodox cemetery in the southern part of the city? How is it possible that every trace of the fact that thousands of Serbs lived in that part of the city until 1999 is being systematically erased? Although many questions remain unanswered, the intentions behind such activities are more than clear—the abolition of the Municipality of North Mitrovica and the transfer of the alleged model of multiethnicity from the south to the north,” Radojevic stated.

He emphasized that the only result of such activities is the spreading of hatred among young people, further undermining any prospects for coexistence and reconciliation.

“In this regard, we pose a clear question to representatives of the international community: will they continue to passively observe this process and the destruction of the only genuinely multiethnic urban environment? We expect an urgent and unequivocal reaction from the competent institutions, as well as from representatives of the international community, in order to protect legality, the institutional order, and the rights of all citizens,” Radojevic concluded.

Students from South Mitrovica, accompanied by the Mayor of South Mitrovica, Faton Peci, today organized a visit to a memorial plaque that Peci recently unveiled in North Mitrovica together with ministers from Pristina.