Three people were injured when a group of Albanians assaulted Serb refugees during saint’s day celebrations in a church outside the town of Klina on Monday.

The attack took place at the Holy Trinity church in the village of Petric, Kosovo Serbian language media reported.  

Radio Gorazdevac and the Kossev portal reported that the group of some 50 Albanians first blocked the approach road to the church but were forced to pull back by the police. The group returned, encircled the group of Serbs in the church and its yard and shouted insults and threw stones.  

The Serb refugees left the village at around 02:00 pm under police escort.

The Holy Trinity church in Petric was built in 1992 but was destroyed by Albanians late in June 1999. Serb refugees periodically return to their home villages and towns on religious holidays.  

The incident was condemned by Marko Djuric, head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo, saying that the blockade and assault and the construction underway near the Visoki Decani monastery “are not incident but the consequence of an overall social mood which includes the organized denial and destruction of everything linked to the presence of Serbs in Kosovo”. He added that Serbs expelled from Kosovo were systematically prevented from celebrating Christian holidays in their home villages.  

The Kosovo Serb political party Serb List said the blockade and assault were “open hostility against people displaced from the Metohija area, who are denied the right to free movement”.