Arrests in North Macedonia after raucous celebrations by members of ethnic Albanian minority

SKOPJE, North Macedonia -- Police in North Macedonia have arrested 10 people following raucous celebrations — allegedly including gunfire — by members of the country's ethnic Albanian minority to mark an Albanian national holiday, officials said Friday.

Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski said the suspects, who include several minors, face charges of “inciting national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance.” If tried and convicted, they face up to five years in prison.

Hundreds of people took part in celebrations late Thursday of Albanian Flag Day in North Macedonia's capital, Skopje, and other cities.

In Skopje, at least one flag of North Macedonia was hauled down, torn up and set on fire. Local reports said some people taking part in the celebrations had apparently fired bursts of shots in the air with automatic rifles. No injuries were reported.

Thursday night's celebrations boosted ethnic tensions in the small Balkan country, which has a sizeable and occasionally restive ethnic Albanian minority.

North Macedonia's right-wing government condemned the incidents as a bid to destabilize the country. All political parties, including those representing the ethnic Albanian minority, also issued statements of condemnation.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski called the attack on the flag “an act of aggression,” while Interior Minister Toshkovski said it was “a direct attack against the state.”

“I appeal to Macedonian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, not to allow these criminal groups ... to destabilize our common homeland,” Mickoski said on Friday.

According to the latest census in 2021, ethnic Albanians comprise nearly a third of the country's 1,8 million population.

Relations between the Albanian minority and Macedonian majority have been fragile since North Macedonia left the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Ten years later, an armed ethnic Albanian uprising ended with a deal that granted more minority rights.

North Macedonia borders to the west with Albania and to the north with Kosovo, most of whose population is ethnic Albanian. Albanian Flag Day celebrates Albania's declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.