At the memorial ceremony marking the third anniversary of the death of Kosovo Police sergeant Afrim Bunjaku, who was killed on September 24, 2023 in Banjska, Zveçan, during an attack by a Serbian paramilitary group, Prime Minister Albin Kurti stressed that the aggression was an organized attempt by Serbia to undermine Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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Kurti pointed out that for many years the north of the country was considered an ungoverned area and an epicenter of organized crime, where parallel structures and criminal groups had flourished. He added that this unacceptable reality had to change, and that the transition from anomaly to normality faced resistance from criminal structures directed by official Belgrade.
Referring to Serbia’s efforts to maintain influence in the north, the prime minister declared that neither the barricades, nor the attacks on Kosovo’s institutions and KFOR, nor the orchestrated resignations, nor the threats with MIG planes and armies ready for attack worked. “Serbia realized that it has now lost control and that the presence of its structures within the territory of the Republic of Kosovo has been eliminated,” he stated.
Regarding the event of September 24, 2023, Kurti described it as a paramilitary attack supported, financed, trained and directed by the Serbian state, aimed at imitating Russian hybrid methods of territory annexation. He stressed that the terrorist group led by Milan Radoicic, equipped with military tactical uniforms and weaponry of the Serbian Army, attacked a Kosovo Police patrol that morning, killing sergeant Afrim Bunjaku with a remotely detonated mine and wounding police officer Alban Rashiti.
Three years after this attack, the prime minister recalled that Radoicic and other members of the terrorist group continue to take shelter in Serbia under the protection of the Serbian president, and demanded that they face justice in Kosovo for the military-scale aggression and the killing of Bunjaku. He added that they will not stop until justice is achieved, describing Bunjaku as a hero who fell in the line of duty defending the state and peace.
Kurti underlined that thanks to the sacrifice of Afrim Bunjaku, the extension of sovereignty over 17% of the country’s territory became possible, and after neutralizing the Serbian paramilitary attack, the full functioning of the state and its institutions in the north of Kosovo began for the first time.
At the same memorial ceremony, acting President Albulena Haxhiu recalled that in the early hours of September 24, 2023, Afrim Bunjaku and his colleagues headed to Banjska after the village entrance was blocked by two trucks, but what awaited them was not a routine police incident, but a terrorist attack prepared by an organized and heavily armed group with explosives, armored automatic weapons, and large quantities of ammunition.
Haxhiu stressed that Kosovo’s institutions have presented evidence that the members of that group were trained and prepared in Serbia, and that the goal was not only the attack on the Police, but the detachment of a part of Kosovo’s territory and its annexation to Serbia, a purpose that was confirmed also by the Basic Court in Pristina through the verdict in the Banjska case.
She recounted that sergeant Bunjaku, with 22 years of police experience and 16 years as a sergeant, did not let the younger officers go ahead of him when they faced the blockade. At the moment of the explosive device detonation, Bunjaku and police officer Alban Rashiti were wounded, while lieutenant Mirsad Kryeziu pulled Afrim from the site of injury. Despite his fall, the plan for the annexation of the north failed thanks to the courage and professionalism of the Kosovo Police, which took the situation under control and prevented the armed group from taking territory in the north, Haxhiu concluded.
