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Mitrovica: Trucks block a road
Photo: Bojan Slavkovic / dpa
Serbia sends its army chief to the border with Kosovo, puts its armed forces on increased alert - now tensions are also increasing on the other side of the border.
Militant Serbs have erected a barricade north of the divided city of Mitrovica in Kosovo.
Several trucks loaded with stones and sand have been blocking one of the entrances to a neighborhood inhabited by Bosniaks since Tuesday morning, reports the city's Serbian-language news portal kossev.info.
The tense situation had already led to the Serbian government putting its army on increased alert on Monday evening.
Serbian Defense Minister Miloš Vučević announced that President Aleksandar Vučić had ordered "highest combat readiness".
Army chief Milan Mojsilovic had previously stated that he had been sent to the Kosovo border because of Vučić's "complicated situation".
Kosovo, which is now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, used to belong to Serbia and has been independent since 2008.
Serbia does not recognize this and claims the country's territory for itself.
The area around North Mitrovica is almost exclusively inhabited by ethnic Serbs and directly borders with Serbia.
Albanians and Bosniaks also live in the area.
Militant Serbs have been blocking the roads leading to the border crossings to Serbia in the villages north of North Mitrovica for 18 days.
They set up barricades to protest against the arrest of a former Kosovo police officer of Serbian origin who, according to the Kosovan authorities, had launched attacks on officials of the electoral commission.
The government in Belgrade supports the militant Serbs in northern Kosovo, who are mostly recruited from the criminal and secret service milieu.
Vučić repeatedly fuels tensions in Kosovo through these informal structures.
In the past five years he had put the Serbian armed forces on high alert six times.
In all cases this had no consequences.
Since 1999, the NATO-led security force KFOR has guaranteed security throughout Kosovo.
ptz/dpa
