Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church backed on Friday the right of northern Kosovo Serbs to defend themselves by putting up roadblocks, and called on the local Serb population to persist in the fight for their rights.

Irinej served a liturgy in the Pec Patriarchy on the occasion of the Intercession of the Theotokos, which the mediaeval monastery in southern Kosovo-Metohija observes as its patron saint day.

In a statement for reporters after the service, Irinej called on northern Kosovo Serbs to persist until, as he said, strongmen come to realise that Serbs are defending their country and that they put up barricades on their own land, in order to protect their homes and area in which they have been living for centuries now.