Simic: Situation in Kosovo-Metohija worse than ever

BELGRADE - The situation in Kosovo-Metohija is worse than ever and deteriorating further every day and Serbs in the province live in conditions similar to apartheid, says Igor Simic, a senior official of Srpska lista, a political organisation of Kosovo-Metohija Serbs.

"The fact is: if there is no security for Serbs, there will be no Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija..., our people are leaving, the ones who have economic security are leaving because they do not know what awaits them the next day," Simic noted in an appearance on the RTS.

He said the state needed to take a "clear and strong stance" and that security and economic and financial assistance to Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija must be boosted.

In a situation where there are no products from central Serbia, the population in the north of Kosovo-Metohija is forced to pay nearly double for lesser quality products from the region, Simic said.

The Serbs do not trust EULEX at all because it has never done anything to protect them, Simic said.

The situation in Kosovo-Metohija is "getting worse every day" as a result of Pristina's systematic plan to ethnically cleanse the Serbs from Kosovo-Metohija, he said.

He said developments in the province were not "individual incidents" but a part of Pristina's "systemic plan and institutional violence ultimately aimed at ethnic cleansing."

"The time for anemic statements by the international community has passed," he said, noting that KFOR and EULEX had 8,000 and several hundred troops, respectively, in the province and that there was a way to react to Pristina's violence.