The north of Kosovo is running out of food and medicine

Due to the unilateral decision of the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, which was made on June 14, shelves with basic groceries are empty in shops, and there are fewer and fewer mixed goods in shops in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo. There are no flour, oil, sugar, salt, milk, or dairy products from central Serbia, and only those who are lucky can still find the popular "Kravica" and dairy products "Imlek" somewhere, Politka writes today.

Instead of Serbian goods, there is milk from abroad on the shelves, and you can also see yogurt from an Albanian producer, which leads to the thought that Serbian sellers purchase goods in the south, from Albanian wholesalers.

Residents of Kosovska Mitrovica were not willing to speak to the newspaper by name, and one of the owners of a large store in the city center told Politika:

"Don't ask how we manage. Doesn't the world see the anti-civilization measures implemented by Pristina? What does Kurti want? To leave us on bread and water? This is not the first time that Pristina has imposed bans on us, but somehow we managed. Now he is introducing us to a humanitarian disaster, and the world is silent".

In this store, the display case with delicatessen goods is also half empty, and apart from cured meat products from Macedonian and Montenegrin producers, no groceries were coming from central Serbia.

And in other shops in the city center, which until 45 days ago were full of goods, now you can see only a few bottles of oil, there are half-empty shelves with sugar, which is also sold in bulk, and you can only find a few boxes of salt.

"It is all ruined. Pristina wants to break us in every way. We buy goods wherever we can," the owner of a store in the wider center of North Mitrovica said, where, as in the previous store, there were mostly "snacks" and sweets.

What is characteristic of many shops is that they do not have “kajmak”, which is normally brought by villagers from the municipalities of Leposavic and Zubin Potok.

"In this situation, when people are arrested and kidnapped, few people decide to go from the villages in the municipalities of Leposavic and Zubin Potok to Kosovska Mitrovica. Rightfully so, people will not take the risk. Yes, there is no “kajmak”, and we don't even have the famous Sjenica and Golija cheese anymore," the owner of a shop says where until recently you could find goods "from soup to nuts".

The lady who works at the kiosk on "Kralja Petra Prvog" street waves her hand when asked if people ask about Belgrade newspapers.

"Every morning, the same people come at the same time in front of the kiosk to check if the newspaper has arrived and then they leave sad. The Belgrade press has not arrived for a month and a half. People are used to newspapers. Besides bread and milk, it is their basic morning purchase," the owner of one of the kiosks on the street leading to Zvecan says.

In the city center, on the promenade that stretches from Prince Lazar Square to the Main Bridge on the Ibar, the kiosk shelves are empty. Only two or three issues of unsold newspapers.

"We have no way to get the newspapers. By Pristina's decision, nothing that is Serbian will pass in Jarinje and Brnjak. I don't know what to say, people ask me every day when the newspapers will be," Zvezdan Mihajlovic sayd, the owner of the distributor company "KiM Beokolp", who has been delivering the Belgrade press to the territory of Kosovo and Metohija for years.

He also delivered at the time when Ramush Haradinaj introduced a 100 percent tax on Serbian goods in 2018. At that time, the Belgrade newspapers arrived in the north of Kosovo and further to the Serbian areas south of the Ibar only after five months, and that was when the newspaper companies had to pay the tax that Haradinaj unilaterally introduced.

By the way, there are vegetables and fruits at the improvised market almost in the center of the city, which, as the sellers say, are "supplied from the south".

It is particularly worrying that there is a shortage of medicines in private pharmacies in the entire north of Kosovo. For several days now, there have been no necessary medicines for hypertension, and diabetes, antibiotics are running out, and it is difficult to find medicines that are mandatory therapy for chronic diseases - asthma and obstructive lung diseases. The shortage of drugs for neurological and psychiatric diseases is also worrying.

Let us recall that the ban on the entry of Serbian goods through the administrative crossings at Jarinja and Brnjak, as well as at the other crossings of Kosovo and Metohija with central Serbia, was brought by Kurti after the arrest of three Albanian policemen who had trespassed on the territory of central Serbia.

They were soon released, however, that did not prevent Kurti from not allowing the entry of trucks carrying goods with a Serbian declaration.