Persecution of Serbs

Serbian officials and Kosovo Serbs commemorated the anniversary of ethnic unrest in Kosovo in March 2004, when 19 people died and several thousand fled their homes.

The first class in schools across Serbia today was dedicated to the March 17, 2004 anti-Serb violence in Kosovo, known in Serbia as "the March pogrom."

On the anniversary of the start of the riots, ministers of education and labor Mladen Sarcevic and Aleksandar Vulin visited the Petar Petrovic Njegos elementary in Belgrade and spoke with eighth grade students there.

Croatia’s largest Jewish community group will boycott the state commemoration at the WWII concentration camp in Jasenovac, arguing the government hasn’t acted to stop the display of fascist symbols.

Discrimination against ethnic minorities and Roma remained widespread, states the latest report on Croatia prepared by Amnesty International.

Additionally, Serb returnees face "persisting obstacles to regain their property," the document said, citing UNHCR.

Belgrade’s Humanitarian Law Centre released a documentary accusing the head of the Serbian Army, Ljubisa Dikovic, of involvement in war crimes in Kosovo and cover-up operations to hide the bodies.

Unknown perpetrators have broken into and robbed the Serbian Orthodox church dedicated to St. Petka in the village of Drsnik, near Klina.

The incident in this municipality in Kosovo happened during the night between Saturday and Sunday, Tanjug reported on Monday.

KFOR on Friday denied media reports that said members of the Serbian Army (VS) had entered Kosovo, Beta is reporting.

Koha Ditore, an Albanian language daily, quoted these reports that said the Serbian soldiers, while in Kosovo, "allegedly took pictures with U.S. members of KFOR."

The Zagreb authorities have given the go-ahead to a controversial event questioning the official number of victims of the World War II fascist concentration camp at Jasenovac in Croatia.

Croatian far-right media published videos shot in 1992 of former President Stjepan Mesic downplaying the crimes committed at the World War II fascist concentration camp at Jasenovac.

The government of the Serb Republic (RS), the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has decided to suspend all contacts with High Representative Valentin Inzko.

This came after Inzko compared the marking of RS Day on January 9 to the establishment of the WW2-Nazi allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH), that ran death camps where mass murder of Serbs, Jews, and Roma occurred.