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Inevitable escalation of violence (Koha)

The paper reports on the front page that the first reactions from the residents of Mitrovica to the new Peace Park on the Iber/Ibar River bridge were seen on Sunday. There was an announcement on social media for a peaceful protest in Mitrovica on Sunday. The demonstration gathered no more than 100 people and it went almost unnoticed. But simultaneously, around 1,000 people gathered in a separate protest to express their outrage with Mitrovica North Mayor Goran Rakic’s decision to place the concrete barricade on the bridge and the failure of local and international institutions to react. Some protesters were holding Albanian flags and other were trying to set a Serbian flag on fire. Protesters made no serious attempt to break the police cordon on the bridge. However, after a Kosovo Police special unit walked into the crowd, protesters started throwing stones at the police. For two hours, police tried to disperse protesters by using teargas and rubber bullets, but to no avail. The paper notes that, in addition to Kosovo Police and EULEX, the bridge was also guarded by US KFOR troops, including snipers. Twenty-one protesters, 13 police officers and three reporters were injured during the protest. The Kosovo Police Director for the Mitrovica region, Nehat Thaci, told the newspaper: “The protest was violent, well-organized, and according to preliminary police investigations, there were protesters from other parts of Kosovo too”. The Kosovo Police Deputy Director in the north, Besim Hoti, refuted media reports that Serbian Gendarmerie had deployed in the northern part of Mitrovica. Citing unnamed sources, the paper reports that organized groups from Pristina, Peje/Pec, Decan/Decani and Prizren took part in the protest. Police sources said vehicles were set on fire with Molotov cocktails. The source also said that, although groups were separated, they functioned in coordinated fashion. Mitrovica residents were shocked by the protest. “It was real war today. I don’t know who is to blame, but this will be a setback,” a Mitrovica resident told the paper.