Armed men with UCK insignia seize Macedonian border post near Kosovo
| Publisher | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
| Publication Date | 21 April 2015 |
| Cite as | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Armed men with UCK insignia seize Macedonian border post near Kosovo, 21 April 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5565ba2138.html [accessed 23 May 2023] |
| Comments | All reference to Kosovo should be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
April 21, 2015
By RFE/RL's Balkan Service
Around 40 armed men wearing the insignia of a disbanded ethnic Albanian paramilitary group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), have attacked a border post in northern Macedonia, detaining four Macedonian border officials for about an hour before releasing them.
Macedonian Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski told reporters that the armed men early on April 21 also seized weapons and mobile phones from the border police at the village of Goshnice, in the Lipkovo municipality, near the border with Kosovo.
The attackers later left the border post.
Kotevski called the incident "a terrorist attack," but said he could not confirm whether the armed men came from Kosovo or Macedonia.
He said the attackers demanded their own state and said they did not recognize the Ohrid agreement, the 2001 peace accord that brought an end to a short conflict between government forces and ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia.
Before being disbanded in 1999, the UCK sought Kosovo's independence from Yugoslavia in a campaign that precipated Belgrade's military crackdown against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and the Kosovo War of 1998-99.
Link to original story on RFE/RL website
