(AKI) – A Macedonian policeman was killed and two were wounded when they were ambushed on a patrol near the border with Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province, local media reported on Thursday.Police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said the incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon near the village of Tanusevci, some 25 kilometres north of the capital Skopje, when the police patrol was ambushed and fired at from automatic weapons. Policeman Igor Draganov (24) was killed outright, while doctors in Skopje hospital were fighting for the life of Trajce Ristovski (33). The third policeman, Dzemail Sinani (23), escaped with slight wounds.
Kotevski said that attackers and their motives were unknown. But he added that they may have come from across the border. Tanusevci was at the centre of an ethnic Albanian rebellion in 2001, led by Dzezair Saciri, known as Commander Hodza, who became a Macedonian MP after the rebellion was ended by the Ohrid peace accord in December 2001. Tanusevci has been the scene of frequent incidents since then, and Saciri has threatened to organise a referendum there in November on secession from Macedonia and to join Kosovo. He denied, however, that he had anything to do with Wednesday's incident.