Five more villages without power

Source: Tanjug
PRIŠTINA -- 5 more villages in the Gnjilane municipality have been left without electricity, according to the head of the Kosovo Ministry’s office in Kosovsko Pomoravlje.

Along with nine schools that have no electricity, the Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK) has turned off the power supply in the villages of Gornje Kusce, Straža, Stanišor, Melinci and Draganac, said Predrag Stojković, adding that more than 2,500 Serbs had been left in the dark.

He said that “efforts to solve the problem through negotiations with EULEX failed, because they say that they do not have jurisdiction, while KEK is offering a deal that is not acceptable to the Serbs.”

“The Serbian government is trying to solve the problem through the international community, because there is a way of supplying Kosovo with the amount of electricity needed by the Serb community, but the Albanians do not want to accept it,” Stojković said.

The villages of Šilovo, Mogila, Grnčar and Binač have been without electricity for 19 days, while Labljane has not had electricity for over a week.

The power supply to the villages of Ranilug, Glogovce, Tomance and Pančelo was turned off three days ago.

Of the total 73 villages in the municipalities of Novo Brdo, Kosovska Kamenica and Vitina , electricity has been turned off in 14 of them, affecting some 10,000 Serbs residents.

KEK: No power until debts are settled

Power won't be restored to the 20 villages in Kosovo without electricity until all their debts have been settled, says the Kosovo Electricity Corporation (KEK).

A KEK spokesman said that reasons for the cut were the numerous breakdowns on the network that KEK did not wish to repair because of the debts.

He could not say exactly how many Serb villages had been left without electricity.

Serb villages in Kosovsko Pomoravlje and in central Kosovo have been without power for over a fortnight.

KEK announced earlier that Kosovo citizens owed the company EUR 360mn altogether.