Pessimism Prevails among Serbs in Kosovo

Just over a decade since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, less than 10 per cent of ethnic Serbs in the majority-Albanian country believe their lives will improve in the next three years, according to the results of a survey.

Almost a quarter of respondents said that they "never" travel to areas of Kosovo where Albanians are the majority; roughly half said they go "rarely" while only eight per cent said they travel "often" to Albanian-majority areas.

The survey, published on Tuesday by the Kosovo-based NGO Aktiv and Radio KiM, was conducted between July 15 and September 5 this year among 540 Serb nationals, of which more than half live outside of a majority-Serb area of northern Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 with the backing of the West, almost a decade after NATO air strikes drove out Serbian forces accused of killing and expelling Kosovo Albanian civilians during a brutal counter-insurgency war. Serbia, backed by big-power ally Russia, does not recognise its former province as sovereign.

Many Serbs fled after the war; an estimated 100,000 remain, out of a total population in Kosovo of 1.8 million.

Half of respondents said they saw current political developments as the greatest danger to their safety and the safety of their families

"Respondents' apparent dissatisfaction with the dominant socio-political tendencies in Kosovo was translated into clear pessimism that something could be changed in a positive direction," the authors of the survey said.

"Such pessimism is a stable tendency and is more or less manifested year after year," it said.

Ninety-two per cent said that general trends in Kosovo are neither favourable nor encouraging for the Serb community in Kosovo.

About 41 per cent...

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