The European Stability Initiative (ESI) stated that no international organization, including security ones, has seen evidence to support Belgrade\u2019s claims of \u201cethnic cleansing of Serbs\u201d in Kosovo, but the lack of evidence has not put an end to inflammatory claims.<\/p>\n
In a report titled \u201cInvented pogroms \u2013 Statistics, lies, and confusion in Kosovo\u201d, the organization recalls that in July 2023, Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 declared that NATO and the United Nations had fourteen days to disarm the Kosovo Police forces and protect Kosovo Serbs from \u201ccontinuous pogroms and ethnic cleansing\u201d by Albanians. Otherwise, \u201csomeone else\u201d would have to do it.<\/p>\n
The report notes that warnings that Serbia might need to send troops to Kosovo to protect Serbs are not new, referring to a statement by Serbian President Vu\u010di\u0107 in August 2018, in which he described Kosovo as a powder keg.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone will wait for an opportunity to strike each other to gain an advantage on the ground. And every day, we will worry whether they will attack us in the north, where they will hit us, with whose support…\u201d the Serbian president had said.<\/p>\n
However, the statements in 2018 argued that if Serbs were attacked in Kosovo, Serbia would defend them. Since 2023, statements argue that Serbs are now under attack and need protection, the report says, stating that this is a serious threat to peace in the Balkans.<\/p>\n
Several months later, Serbian paramilitaries attacked the Kosovo Police in the north, the report recalls, the September 24, 2023, attack by an armed group of Serbs who killed a member of the Kosovo Police.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time to take seriously what is currently being said by politicians in Belgrade. If pogroms are invented, violence follows. If these false claims are not countered, the situation will escalate further,\u201d the report says, emphasizing that \u201cit should not be difficult for international organizations to refute false, deceptive, and dangerous claims of imaginary massacres whenever they occur. None of the many international observers on the ground in Kosovo, from KFOR to EULEX, from UNMIK to the OSCE, have seen or described \u2018ethnic cleansing of Serbs\u2019 or Albanian \u2018terrorism\u2019 in recent years. But the lack of evidence has not stopped the inflammatory claims\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report highlights that one of the means in this battle of narratives has been statistics. On October 5, 2023, President Vu\u010di\u0107 stated that as a result of \u201cAlbanian terrorism\u201d, 11 percent of Kosovo Serbs have left Kosovo since the beginning of 2021. On February 8, 2024, speaking at the UN Security Council, Vu\u010di\u0107 increased the number of Kosovo Serbs who had left to \u201c14 percent\u201d in just one year.<\/p>\n
No evidence has been provided for the alleged pogroms, systematic violence, or supposed \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d in recent years, the 18-page report states, comparing statements and statistics presented by Serbian authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Stability Initiative (ESI) stated that no international organization, including security ones, has seen evidence to support Belgrade\u2019s claims of \u201cethnic cleansing of Serbs\u201d in Kosovo, but the lack of evidence has not put an end to inflammatory claims. In a report titled \u201cInvented pogroms \u2013 Statistics, lies, and confusion in Kosovo\u201d, the organization […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":66415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[1685,6167,300,1098,243,151,301,787],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n