Priština, Kosovo, July 21, 2022
The highly vandalized "White Church" in Samodreža. Photo: Živojin Rakočević
According to a new report from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Kosovo Mission, the number of incidents targeting cultural heritage and religious sites in Kosovo and Metohija has increased in recent years.
Many of those attacks were against Serbian Orthodox churches, cemeteries, or other sites.
The report, published on Monday, covers the period from January 2014 to December 2020. The report “concludes that the effective protection of cultural heritage in Kosovo should not be limited to physical restoration and that a broader approach is needed.”
Between 2014 and 2020, there were 247 reported attacks. 112 cases were thefts of money, assets, or heritage-related items. “However, even if thefts are of merely monetary character, they can cause collateral damage to the religious and secular sites,” the report notes.
42 of the 112 monetary thefts occurred at Serbian Orthodox churches. Meanwhile, 77 (57%) of the incidents targeting cultural heritage and religious sites were committed against Orthodox churches and cemeteries. There were also ten art thefts at Orthodox churches, including the removal of crosses and icons.
There were 48 cases of vandalism against Serbian Orthodox churches and buildings, and 25 cases of disturbances, including rocks thrown at churches and priests’ houses, graffiti with disturbing messages, and the placing of an Albanian flag at the fence of a Serbian Orthodox cemetery.
The report also notes six acts of desecration against Orthodox churches or cemeteries, as well as 25 cases of other incidents at Orthodox cemeteries.
The OSCE also notes that since 2014, only 18 of the 247 incidents have been condemned by municipal representatives.
Such tragic incidents have only continued since 2020. There were six attacks against Orthodox churches in Kosovo already this year by mid-February, and OrthoChristian reported on the vandalism of more than 80 graves at an Orthodox cemetery in Mitrovica, also in February.
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