Serbs at the Memorial in South Mitrovica: Every time more and more destroyed headstones

On the occasion of Winter Memorial services, a group of Serbs from North Mitrovica visited the graves of their loved ones in the southern part of the city, Radio Mitrovica Sever reports.

"Every time we come, there are more and more destroyed headstones," two elderly women from Mitrovica say.

Also, a resident of North Mitrovica said that he was overcome with sadness when he saw the state of the Orthodox cemetery.

"You see, there is also garbage... Such uncultured and uncivilized behavior can't be found anywhere. We did not disturb their cemetery. We respect the dead... And our dead? They moved their bones," an elderly resident of Mitrovica says.

After 1999, the cemetery in South Mitrovica suffered the fate of almost all Orthodox cemeteries in Kosovo. The headstones were destroyed, the chapel was devastated, then rebuilt, and then damaged again. In many places, the gravestones were broken, and many burial mounds were overgrown to the point of being unrecognizable.

There are almost no newly buried people. Only a couple of sporadic funerals, on the explicit wishes of the deceased.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the headstones in the cemetery in South Mitrovica have been destroyed, and every time the people of Mitrovica visit this place, which happens only on Memorial Day, they note that more headstones have been damaged.

At the same time, in North Mitrovica, at the entrance to the city from the direction of Zvecan, there is a Muslim cemetery where mostly Albanians are buried. There has never been any desecration or disrespect for that sacred place.

Citizens went to the cemetery this morning by transport organized by the Provisional Authority of the Kosovska Mitrovica Municipality.