Local people living near the frontier with Kosovo have had enough of constant tension and ‘incidents,’ which they say are further depressing the region’s prospects. Villagers in southern Serbia, near the border between Serbia and Kosovo, live in insecurity due to occasional incidents at the sensitive frontier. More and more are losing patience and leaving the region, reports BalkanInsight.com

Armed incidents do not happen that often, but they still keep people awake at night at least several times a year. The region is also exposed to the problem of organised crime. Locals are alarmed by the traffic of people illegally crossing the border, by smuggling and illegal logging.

The border zone remains a sensitive region. In 2000 and 2001 it was the scene of an armed conflict between the security forces and local ethnic Albanian militants in the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja.

The new Serbian army base is another source of disquiet. Known as Jug, it officially opened last November near the mainly Albanian town of Bujanovac. While Serbian officials insist the base will guarantee peace and stability in the region, ethnic Albanians remain opposed to its opening.

Although experts and representatives of the Serbian Army say Southern Serbia is stable, people in the border villages, both Serbs and Albanians, do not feel especially safe.

Dragoslav Vasiljevic, from the village of Rasevac, near Kursumlija, says many of his neighbours have moved away because they don’t feel comfortable, close to the border. “Many have already moved out,” he said, “ and only around 50 have remained in the village, but I have nowhere else to go.”

Locals in the area reported a shooting incident near the dividing line on the night between January 4 and 5. “As soon as I heard shooting from the Kosovo side, I decided to get my weapon,” said one villager who lives only a few hundred metres from the border.

Locals claim by the sound of shooting from the Kosovo side disturbed them that night. Some also claim searchlights were pointed at their village, which made some head out to the outskirts with weapons.

Neither KFOR command in Kosovo nor the Serbian Army registered any incidents that night, however. The circumstances of the case have still not been cleared up.

About 150 kilometres to the southeast, on the part of the border near Bujanovac, Luan Sadiku, 26, an ethnic Albanian from the village of Lucani, says living with the fear of armed incidents is frustrating.

“My family and I cannot sleep peacefully because we are in constant fear of possible incidents,” says the young man, sitting with his friends in front of the grocer’s in this entirely Albanian village.

The area where Sadiku lives is one of the most sensitive border areas. It has seen the highest number of registered incidents. Gunmen wounded two members of the gendarmerie, the Serbian special police, in Lucani on July 10 last year.

Several days later, an explosion in a building in the overwhelmingly Albanian border town of Presevo injured two people. A police investigation established that an explosive device had been planted in the basement.

The perpetrators and circumstances of the incidents have not been revealed. Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic, and the Minister of Interior, Ivica Dacic, have described both incidents as terrorist acts.

A criminal group accused of trafficking people and narcotics was subsequently arrested. But there has been no official confirmation of a link between the gang and the two crimes.

Interior Minister Dacic said this week during visit to special police forces in the village of Miratovac, near Medvedja, that the security situation on the border remained stable but he also called on the government to invest more money in the region in order to stop people from emigrating.

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