Five Kosovo Serb villages without electricity for a week

BBC Monitoring, January 24, 2006, Tuesday

 

Text of report by Serbian independent news agency FoNet

 

Belgrade, 24 January: Five Serb-populated villages in Lipljan municipality has been without electricity for a whole week now, and households in the Serb enclaves of Strpce and Gorazdevac have been without electricity for 50 hours continuously, said the International Press Centre of the Coordination Centre [for Kosovo-Metohija, headed by Sanda Raskovic-Ivic] in Kosovska Mitrovica.

 

Parts of Lipljan, Novo Naselje and the villages of Skulanovo, Suvi Do, Lepina and Radevo, populated by around 4,000 ethnic Serbs, have been without electricity for a week, and as the inhabitants use water from a well-pump, there is also no water, a statement from the Coordination Centre for Kosovo-Metohija said.

 

The statement noted that the Kosovo Energy Corporation [KEK] was making the situation worse because they are demanding that the Serbs sign contracts to give up their demand that the Serbian Electric Power Industry (EPS) should be the electricity provider for Serb-populated areas.

 

Strpce inhabitants said that none of the Serb villages in the enclave except for Urosevac have electricity.

 

In the area of central Kosovo, in Gracanica, Orahovac and Velika Hoca, restrictions of electric energy are also significant.

 

The director of [Serbian state-owned mobile operator] Telekom [Srbija] for Kosovo-Metohija, Ilija Ivanovic, said that the mobile telephone sector was operating, except for in the area of Ugljare village where cables were cut last week.

 

Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1449 gmt 24 Jan 06