August while at least one Orthodox and French war graveyard are now a rubbish dump, reports said Monday December 1.
The Forum 18 News Service (F18News), which investigates religious persecution, said churches in the villages of Gornja Brnjica and Susica were damaged, but that the perpetrators managed to escape.
"…Someone entered the belfry via open windows at the top and climbed down the bell rope," said Fr Miroslav Popadic, the last Serbian Orthodox priest in Kosovo’s capital Pristina and also responsible for Gornja Brnjica, 7 kilometres (4 miles) to the north.
"Some money was stolen and minor material damage was done. After it, the entry doors were smashed and broken, probably in order to exit the chapel," he reportedly said.
A similar attack occurred several days earlier on the St Dimitrije church in Susica, near Gracanica, F18 News said. "Unknown persons damaged the churchyard fence and wrote graffiti in Albanian on the church wall. This was the second such attack on the church this year."
NATO "NO KNOWLEDGE"
However a spokesman of the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR, Wing Commander Chris Thompson, told F18News he had "no knowledge of the alleged events, therefore we cannot comment."
The Orthodox diocese of Raska and Prizren has expressed its serious concern at this "continuation of vandalism".
"We are endangered not only physically, but we are endangered as a religious community battling to preserve its religious and ethnic identity," Fr Sava (Janjic), deputy abbot of Decani Monastery, was quoted as saying.
The attacks are believed to have been carried out by ethnic Albanians fighting for independence of Kosovo, which remained part of Serbia which forms a lose federation with tiny Montenegro.
THOUSANDS FLEE
Tens of thousands of Serb civilians fled the province following the 1999 NATO bombing campaign that forced Serb troops to end their crackdown against the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo.
For the Serbs who stay behind, including Christians, life is extremely dangerous, suggested Fr Sava. He said church leaders were even not able to arrive quickly on August 14 when two Serbian children swimming in the river of village Gorazdevac, were shot and killed while several others were wounded.
The attack was reportedly timed just before 200 Serb refugees were expected to return to the area. Their return was apparently quickly aborted. Fr Sava pointed out it took the church representatives "10 long hours" to reach the families. "That time was needed to provide us with the necessary military escort to move only 15 kilometres from Decani Monastery, simply to be there when it was critical," he told F18News.
"BEG AND ACCUSE"
"That was the place where we were supposed to be. I had to call KFOR generals, to beg and accuse, so that we could get to Gorazdevac," he said.
In addition there are few places for Serbs to mourn their dead, as many Orthodox graveyards have been vandalised, human rights groups say.
News reports on the Day of the Dead, 1 November, said numerous graveyards had been desecrated and tombstones destroyed or knocked down.
Belgrade daily Politika reported last month that in the past four years more than 50 Serbian Orthodox graveyards were completely destroyed, F18News monitored.
TOMBSTONES DESTROYED
In some places there is no trace that they ever existed. About 5,000 tombstones were destroyed, and the damage is calculated at millions of dollars. One of them, an Orthodox cemetery in Djakovica was leveled to the ground, and with it a French military cemetery where First World War soldiers are buried.
This French war cemetery is now used as a city rubbish dump, F18News said.
