Twenty-six people, including 10 police officers, were injured when a protest by ethnic Serbs in Kosovo against the cutoff of electricity to their villages turned violent.
 
The incident happened on May 10 after about 300 protesters blocked the main road from eastern Kosovo to Serbia. Local and international news agencies quoted officials in eastern Kosovo as saying that the protesters threw stones, bottles and Molotov cocktails  at police who were attempting to remove the blockade.
 
A number of protesters were arrested. By the end of May 11, the situation was reported to be calm.
 
The protests were centred around 14 villages in the Kosovsko Pomoravlje region, where villages do not want to sign individual contracts with or pay bills to the Kosovo-run power company, but instead want to deal only with Serbian power provider EPS.
 
Serbian news website B92 said that Serbian president Boris Tadic had been asked to meet Serb representatives to learn about the electricity supply problems.
 
Belgrade does not recognise Kosovo’s February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence and there are continuing tensions around the ethnic Serb communities in Kosovo.
 
Serbian minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic called on villagers in the area to resolve the situation peacefully. "We are in constant contact with the international community, but violence, regardless of where it comes from, will certainly not bring electricity to the Serbs," he said.