Serb employees of K Mitrovica local authority denied entry to municipal building

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - The so-called Kosovo Police, which raided and illegally closed the building of the Kosovska Mitrovica provisional municipal authority on Friday, denied entry to the building on Monday to Serb employees who attempted to go to their workplaces.

The employees gathered outside the building and police SUVs are deployed in the area, a Tanjug correspondent reports.

The authority provides numerous vital services to thousands of Serbs living in the north of Kosovo-Metohija.

In Friday's raid, Pristina's police seized the municipal buildings in all four municipalities in the north of Kosovo-Meothija - Leposavic, Kosovska Mitrovica, Zvecan and Zubin Potok - the hospital complex in Kosovska Mitrovica and a building that housed the offices of the pension and disability insurance fund, the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija, the Kosovska Mitrovica Administrative District and the Social Work Centre.

On Sunday, Pristina's institutions placed trilingual signs with symbols of the so-called Kosovo.

On the building that housed the offices of the pension and disability insurance fund and the Kosovska Mitrovica district, they placed paper boards reading "Interior Ministry", "Ministry of Local Self-Government Administration" and "Ministry of Labour and Transfer."

The move suggests that the buildings closed on Friday have already been repurposed.

The raid - a unilateral action by Pristina - has been condemned by the EU mission in Pristina, the US embassy and the ambassadors of Germany, the UK and France.