- Goraždevac
Goraždevac (Serbian: Гораждевац, known in Albanian as "Gorazhdevc") is a village near the city of
Peć in the UN administered province ofKosovo inSerbia . It has been inhabited since at least the 13th century, when it was mentioned in the chrysobull ofStefan Nemanja (or his son, Stefan the First-Crowned).Fact|date=February 2007The village possesses the oldest log-cabin church in
Serbia , constructed at the end of the 16th century and dedicated to Saint Jeremiah. Although very small, it has a completenave andnarthex . The oldicons and church vessels are now kept in a new church in the vicinity of the old one. In the late 1970s the church underwent extensive conservation and restoration works.As a
Serb -inhabited enclave in a heavily Albanian-inhabited region of western Kosovo, Goraždevac has for several years been the scene of ethnic tensions between the two communities. It was the scene of attacks by the guerilla group, the "Kosovo Liberation Army ", in the late 1990s as they fought the occupying Serb paramilitary forces, accused of committing atrocities against the local Albanian population. After the end of theKosovo War in June 1999, many of its population of around 2,000 Serbs fled attacks by Albanian militants, though some later returned. The population today is said to be around 850 people. The village has come under repeated attack by Albanian extremists since the end of the Kosovo War and is one of a number ofKosovo Serb enclaves under 24-hour guard by troops from KFOR.In August 2003, a 19-year old Serbian teenager and a 12-year old boy were shot and killed, with four more children wounded, while swimming in the
Bistrica river at Goraždevac. The incident sparked a wave of anti-Serbian violence across Kosovo. It was widely blamed on Albanian extremists but the culprits have not yet been found.In June 2003, Veselin Besović from Goraždevac was sentenced by an international court in Peć to serve seven years in prison for crimes allegedly committed in the villages of Čuska and Zahać. [ [http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR010162003?open&of=ENG-CHE Concerns in Europe and Central Asia: January to June 2003 (Amnesty International)] ] He has appealed. [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=10476&Cr=kosovo&Cr1=]
References
See also
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Kosovo Serb enclaves
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