Healthcare workers in North Mitrovica staged a protest on Friday morning following what local officials described as an overnight “raid” by Kosovo authorities on the Clinical Hospital Center (KBC) and the local Health Center.
The director of the Hospital Center in North Mitrovica and president of the Srpska Lista party, Dr. Zlatan Elek, addressed the crowd, saying that Kosovo Police had entered the hospital and the Health Center without prior notice or consent. He accused officers of intimidating hospital security staff, checking their documents, and questioning them about their employment.
“Our workers — porters who earn their living honestly — were harassed, threatened, asked who pays their salaries, and told not to show up again,” Elek said. He added that police allegedly searched the Health Center’s guard booth looking for weapons but found none.
Kosovo Police denied entering the hospital but confirmed they had searched the guard booth of the Health Center.
Friday’s protest, held at 11 a.m. in the hospital courtyard, drew a large number of medical staff. Protesters carried placards reading “Our doctors, our patients, our KBC” and “Hands off our hospital,” demanding that Kosovo Police stop interfering with the work of medical institutions. They also appealed to the international community to safeguard their right to provide healthcare.
“Without our hospital and without education, we have no future here,” Elek warned. He urged KFOR and EULEX to urgently deploy forces at the entrances to healthcare and educational institutions “to prevent future raids by Kurti’s forces and domestic traitors.”
Elek also stressed that no signed agreement or plan requires the integration of Serbian-run healthcare and education into the Kosovo system. “Neither the Ahtisaari Plan, nor the Brussels Agreement, nor the Ohrid Agreement foresees this,” he said.
He concluded by calling on Serbs not to respond to what he described as “provocations” from Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Minister Nenad Rašić.
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