Eight children in the central school Sveti Sava in Paralovo, where somewhat over a hundred Serbs live, their 27 peers in the outpost in Straža, and 130 pupils in the central school Bora Stanković in the village of Koretište near Gnjilane received soccer balls, a present from the Committee for Assistance to Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.

– This is the first donation to our children. This is the first present given to our pupils in the last 20 years and we are very grateful to the Banja Luka Committee and soccer clubs from the Republic of Srpska who sent a message of support to survive in the absolute isolation in Paralovo by sending the balls – said Russian language teacher Predrag Ristić.

He added that about 1,300 Serbs lived in Paralovo before withdrawal of the Serb army and police, and today only a tenth of that number.

According to him, the children in this school do not have a playground, but they have a large stone-filled surface that serves as a field, where they are supervised by teachers and school security because the school is located about thirty meters from the Priština – Gnjilane highway.

Paralov President Siniša Simjonović, whose two sons are attending higher grades of primary school, expressed hope that the school would never close.

– We persist, and only thanks to the determination of the parents to stay at their homes, the school has not been closed down – Simjonović added.

In Straža outpost of the Elementary School Bora Stanković from Koretište, near Gnjilane, for the first time in several years, there will be six first-graders in the first grade, and 27 in the central school in Koretište.

– This is our future and confirmation of the determination of young parents to stay with their children on their patrimony, even though we do not see the sky from the dust during the dry period – said the director of this school, Petar Aksić.

He stated that, unfortunately, with the consent of the Serbs heading the Kosovo municipality of Novo Brdo, where the villages of Straža and Koretište belong according to the Kosovo system of territorial organization, six quarries were opened in this area.

Source: RTRS

Photo: SRNA