Kosovo Closes Two Border Crossings With Serbia After Protest

Police officers stand guard as protestors partially block the road near the main Kosovo-Serbia border crossing in Merdare, Serbia September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj
Police officers stand guard as protestors partially block the road near the main Kosovo-Serbia border crossing in Merdare, Serbia September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj
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Kosovo Closes Two Border Crossings With Serbia After Protest

Police officers stand guard as protestors partially block the road near the main Kosovo-Serbia border crossing in Merdare, Serbia September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj
Police officers stand guard as protestors partially block the road near the main Kosovo-Serbia border crossing in Merdare, Serbia September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj

Kosovo said on Saturday it had closed two border crossings with Serbia after protesters on Serbian soil partially blocked roads and turned back passengers with Kosovo documents in protest over recent tensions in Kosovo's volatile north.
A small group of protesters gathered a few kilometers inside Serbia, near at least three border crossings, and were checking whether drivers had Kosovo-issued travel documents.
"Masked extremists groups inside Serbian territory are selectively and with a fascist approach stopping citizens who use Serbia as transit," Kosovo's interior minister, Xhelal Svecla, said on his Facebook page, announcing the closure of crossings in Merdare and Bernjak.
Four other borders between the Balkan neighbors remained open, Reuters said.
The group was protesting against Pristina's recent actions in northern Kosovo, mainly inhabited by ethnic Serbs, which closed Belgrade-run parallel institutions.
Some 50,000 Serbs live in that area and, like Serbia, do not recognise Kosovo's independence. They consider Belgrade their capital.
In the past two years, northern Kosovo has experienced its worst ethnic tensions since the Albanian-majority country declared independence in 2008 after a years-long guerrilla uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
Although Kosovo is recognised by more than 100 countries, Serbia deems it part of Serbian territory. It accuses Kosovo's central government of trampling on the rights of ethnic Serbs and denies accusations of whipping up strife within its neighbor's borders.



Death Toll in Attack on Germany Market Rises to 5, Scholz Calls for Solidarity

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff, and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visit the site where a car drove into a crowd of a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany December 21, 2024. REUTERS/Christian Mang
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff, and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visit the site where a car drove into a crowd of a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany December 21, 2024. REUTERS/Christian Mang
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Death Toll in Attack on Germany Market Rises to 5, Scholz Calls for Solidarity

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff, and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visit the site where a car drove into a crowd of a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany December 21, 2024. REUTERS/Christian Mang
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff, and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visit the site where a car drove into a crowd of a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany December 21, 2024. REUTERS/Christian Mang

Germans on Saturday mourned the victims after a doctor drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a small child, and wounding at least 200 others.

Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening and took him into custody for questioning.

He has lived in Germany since 2006, practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg, officials said.

The state governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters that the death toll rose to five from a previous figure of two and that more than 200 people in total were injured.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that nearly 40 of them "are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”

Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day.

Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg.

The chancellor called on the nation to stand together against hate.

Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.