Bojana Milosevic was sleeping in the early hours of September 24 last year when she heard gunshots nearby.

“I thought they were from some wedding. People here celebrate marriages and child births with gunshots,” the 72-year-old told BIRN, seated on a low roadside terrace near her house in Banjska, a village near the northern Kosovo municipality of Zvecan.

Banjska made international headlines six months ago when a group of armed Serbs attacked a Kosovo police patrol, killing a sergeant.

“I thought: All the best for the couple who are getting married,” Bojana added.

At that moment, Bojana was sleeping in the upper floor of her home, which is located just in front of the hotel, close to the Serbian Orthodox monastery whose surroundings were the arena of a gunbattle between police and the armed group after the police officer’s murder. Her son was sleeping on the ground floor of the same house.