Serbian village cemetery in the Dren village under the land expropriation impact carried out by Pristina

After a series of decisions on land expropriation in northern Kosovo in 2022, the Kosovo Government made another decision of this kind in mid-January, and it also includes the village cemetery in the Dren village.

This time, over 80 hectares of two cadastral zones - in Dren and Lesak villages, in private, social, and municipal ownership - are being expropriated. Although there are two cadastral zones, looking at the satellite image, it is one huge piece of land - a hill. Among these plots of land is the village cemetery in Dren, Radio Mitrovica Sever reports, citing the Kossev portal.

For the Kosovo Government, a new piece of land in the north is being expropriated for another "infrastructure project of public interest". For local Serbs, this is a reason for new concern and fear due to the lack of information about what will be built on the hill.

At the session held on January 16, the Kosovo Government decided to declare real estate in the cadastral zones Dren and Lesak of special public interest for the purpose of implementing infrastructure projects.

The decision states that such a thing is necessary for the "Infrastructural projects of public interest" implementation.

By the same decision, the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning, and Infrastructure Expropriation Department was ordered to initiate real estate expropriation procedures per the Law on Expropriation, in coordination with the competent ministries.

In the third point, it is stated that the Department for Expropriation and the Ministry of Finance, Labor and Transfer are obliged to implement this decision.

In the decision of the Kosovo Government, which can be found on the website of the Kosovo Prime Minister's office, there are no details about the plot area, nor about why it was declared to be of special public interest, or what kind of infrastructure projects will be implemented.

We tried to get answers to these questions from the Kosovo Government, but we didn't get them by the time this news was published.

Nevertheless, we had insight into the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Expropriation Department's decision.

This document contains a list consisting of data on the plot number, owner, cadastral area, as well as the municipality where the real estate whose expropriation is requested is located.

Expropriation is planned for seven plots in the Dren cadastral zone. Of these, it is stated that the Leposavic Municipality is the owner of one plot, four are social property, i.e., the owner is a company, and two are owned by the person D. J.

Information on the area is given for six out of seven parcels. It is a total of 395,977 square meters, i.e., more than 39 hectares.

For the Lesak cadastral zone, it is stated that 13 plots of land are being expropriated. Of this number, two are also owned by one company, and the other 11 are listed as private individuals, while for some parcels, there are several co-owners. The total area of all plots is measured at 427,533 square meters, i.e., more than 42 hectares.

The total area of all plots exceeds 80 hectares, and according to the satellite image we had access to, it is one piece of land.