Small-town mayor is caught in north Kosovo tensions

Mayor of the Serb-majority municipality of Leposavic, Lulzim Hetemi, speaks during an interview with Reuters, at his office in Leposavic, Kosovo December 8, 2023. REUTERS/Valdrin Xhemaj

LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo (Reuters) - Meet the small-town Kosovo mayor who is rejected by most inhabitants of his municipality and who is trapped amid tensions between Albanians and Serbs that have bubbled over into sporadic violence this year.

Lulzim Hetemi, the ethnic Albanian mayor of Kosovo's northern municipality of Leposavic, has lived and slept in his office since a month after he was elected in April, guarded by NATO troops and Kosovo special police.