Petrit Latifi

In 1913 the “Brixener Chronik” reported that Serbian troops harrassed and abused Albanian and Bosnian refugees in Hercegovina forcing Austro-Hungarians consuls to intervene. The Serbian authorities claimed that the victims were not Austro-Hungarian citizens. The Albanians and Bosniaks then destroyed Turkish gravestones which the Serbs had plundered in order to make street slabs.

“Through the repatriation of over 4,000 Bosnian-Herzegovinian families, as well as through the extermination or expulsion of numerous other Muslim and Albanian families, the areas occupied by the Serbs have been so depopulated that the Serbian side is already appealing to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian and other Austro-Hungarian Serbs to emigrate to Old Serbia. According to reports in Serbian newspapers, 50,000 families in Hungary alone are said to be ready to emigrate to Old Serbia.”

The Serbs deported 4,000 Bosnian families and killed or expelled many Albanians, and thus these emptied regions were ready to be populated by Slavic colonists from Hungary. Serbs also encouraged Slavs from Hercegovina and Austria to migrate and populate the villages.

Reference

https://digital.tessmann.it/tessmannDigital/digitisedJournalsArchive/page/journal/3/1/15.02.1913/4721/5/filterId-3%014721%0142168-query-albanischen-filterIssueDate-%5B01.01.1912+TO+24.05.1939%5D-filterF_type-.html