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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Endangerment of Serbian cultural, religious heritage in Kosovo and Metohija

Belgrade, 13 October 2023

The Ministry of Culture stated today, regarding the writing of the koha.net portal, which on 12 October published a text about "unauthorised interventions in the Banjska Monastery", that as part of the brutal campaign of persecution of Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, the Serbian cultural and religious heritage is increasingly being targeted.

The statement says that the false concern for Serbian heritage is experiencing a new peak in Pristina's attempt to bring the religious heritage of the Serbian Orthodox Church under its control in an unscrupulous and hypocritical manner, with the intention of appropriating it.

The so-called Kosovo authority not only demonstrates lack of care for the Serbian cultural heritage, but also open intolerance, given that since the Albanian pogrom against the Serbs in 2004, they have taken no action to restore more than 50 destroyed Serbian churches, monasteries and cultural monuments.

Some are still in ruins, some do not exist, and most, like the church of the Virgin of Ljeviska in Prizren, are still without electricity, with wall paintings under deposits of soot that were created when extremists deliberately burned tires in this cultural monument.

Therefore, it is clear that, for the umpteenth time, Pristina's two-faced concern for Serbian cultural heritage is only a poor concealment of the fact that they themselves are the culprits of continuous violence against cultural heritage, it is added in the statement.