The Mayor of Leposavić/Leposaviç Municipality Dragan Jablanović yesterday stated that Pristina is manipulating with numbers of Kosovo Serbs in northern Kosovo and with numbers of Albanians living in the south of the Ibar/Ibër River. He explained that thousands of Serbs are erased from the registers whereas thousands of non-existing Albanians are added to registers.

“Ahead of the last elections we received from Pristina the voters’ lists with total 19.560 voters (and 22.000 residents), and only six months later when we were to adopt the budget we were told that there are 13.700 residents  living in Leposavić,” said Jablanovic and explained that when it was about allocation of the budget funds some 8.000 citizens have simply disappeared from the list overnight.

He reminded that census didn’t take place in that municipality since 1991 and that number of resident has increased for some 2.000 people in the meantime, what is to say that there are around 20.000 residents and around 13.000 voters currently living in the municipality.

Jablanovic went on to say that Kosovo Albanians claim that there are around two million of them living in Kosovo, whereas according to him there are only 1,2 million of Kosovo Albanians living in Kosovo.

Last census was carried in by Kosovo institutions in 2011, but Serbs from northern Kosovo didn’t take part in it.