Bosnian Muslim rites for Kosovo boys

GORNJE LJUBINJE, Serbia, July 31 (UPI) -- A circumcision festival attracted Kosovo's Albanians and Serbs to a Bosnian Muslim rite for dozens of small boys.

Residents of villages near Kosovo's southern town of Prizren say the Sunet circumcisions of more than 100 small boys in one day could be explained simply by poverty.

"It dates from a period of crisis when people had no money. It was simpler for everybody to come together and share the expenses," Rafik Kasi, a journalist from Gornje Ljubinje said.

His nephew was circumcised during the one-day festival, The New York Times reported Monday.

In the ethnically divided Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province, there are a number of other Bosnian Muslim villages in the Zupa Valley near Prizren, between Albanian and Macedonian borders, that had mass Sunet ceremonies.

Now, only these two villages maintain the ancient circumcision festival, all along with a Romany band.

On Saturday, two surgeons and a doctor performed procedures on boys under local anesthetic for a small number of parents, while a 69-year-old barber from Prizren, circumcised a great majority of boys, mostly aged under 5.