List of massacres in the Kosovo War

Albanian victims

Incomplete list of massacres by Yugoslav/Serb forces in the Kosovo War, listed chronologically:

1998

• February 28–March 1, 1998, Attacks on Likošane and Ćirez — Serb military police murdered 14 members of the Ahmeti family in Likošane and several members of the Sejdiu family in Ćirez.^[1][2]
• March 5, 1998, Attack on Prekaz - Yugoslav forces raided the village of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader Adem Jashari and killed him and around sixty members of his family.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}
• May 25, 1998 and April 1, 1999, Ljubenić massacres — Serb police officers executed at least eight men suspected of being KLA insurgents.^[10]
• September 26, 1998, Golubovac Massacre - Serb paramilitaries summarily executed thirteen men who were on suspicion of being KLA insurgents. The men were detained at a compound in the village of Golubovac.^[11]
• September 28, 1998, Gornje Obrinje massacre - after an attack on the military of Serbia and Montenegro, its Special Forces entered the village and executed 21 members of the Delijaj family.^[12]

1999

• January 15, 1999 Račak massacre - The Serbian Special Anti-Terrorist Unit and Special Operations Unit killed 45 people in Račak. The victims were mostly civilians.^[13]
• January 29, 1999, Rogovo Massacre — Serb police-officers executed 24 Albanians, supposedly KLA members.^[14][15][16]
• 25 March 1999, Massacre at Velika Kruša - 90 men were executed in the village of Velika Kruša. Massacres such as this were typical throughout 1999, as the Serb Special Forces attempted to decrease the number of recruits joining the Kosovo Liberation Army.
• March 25, 1999, Bela Crkva massacre — The Yugoslav army executed 58 villagers.^[17] The victims were suspected KLA members.^[18][19]
• 26 March 1999, Suva Reka massacre - Members of the Berisha family were forced into their family-owned pizzeria, where two hand grenades were thrown. Serb police officers shot anyone who displayed any signs of life. The police officers then took all of the bodies and disposed of them in a mass grave, near an anti-terrorism facility in Batajnica.^[20]
• March 28, 1999, Izbica Massacre - The Yugoslav Army shelled the village of Izbica. After the shelling killed over a hundred people, Serb Special Forces entered, demanded money from the refugees and told the women, the children and the elderly to go to Albania. After they left, the Special Forces lined about fifty men up against a wall and executed them with automatic weapons.
• March 31, 1999, Ljubižda Massacre — security forces reportedly shot 14 men in the village of Ljubižda, northwest of Prizren.^[21]
• March 31, 1999, Pusto Selo Massacre — Serb Paramilitaries lined 106 ethnic Albanian men against a wall and executed them in Pusto Selo, near Orahovac. The men were allegedly KLA sympathizers.^[22]
• April 5, 1999, Rezala Massacre — Serb Police Officers allegedly entered the Albanian village of Rezala and gunned down at least 80 villagers suspected of harbouring KLA guerillas.^[23]
• April 17, 1999, Poklek Massacre — A Montenegrin Unit of the Serb Special Police forced at least 47 people into one room and opened fire. 23 children under the age of fifteen died in the operation.^[23]
• April 17, 1999, Ćikatovo massacre — Serb Paramilitaries killed twenty-four men from the Morina family that were suspected of being KLA members.^[23]
• April 27, 1999, Meja Massacre - Serb police and paramilitary forces killed at least 300 Albanian men in the village of Meja, in Đakovica municipality. On the same day, in the nearby village of Korenica 13 Albanian men were killed and their bodies burned. Another 67 people from Korenica remain missing, as well as fifty-three other villagers from the surrounding area who were seeking refuge in Korenica.^[24]
• May 2–3, 1999, Vučitrn Massacre - Albanian refugees fleeing the fighting that was occurring between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA were cornered by the Serb Special Forces (who suspected that some KLA members were fleeing the fighting with the refugees). The Special Forces picked out about 120 men who they suspected of being KLA deserters and sprayed them with bullets and later hid their bodies in a mass-grave near Gornja Sudimlja.
• May 14, 1999, Ćuška massacre — Serb police and Paramilitary Forces gathered villagers into 3 houses, gunned them down with automatic weapons and burned down the houses, killing all 41.^[25]
• May 22, 1999, Dubrava Prison Massacre — Serbian prison guards killed more than 70 Albanian prisoners.^[26]
• May 26, 1999, Prizren Massacre - Serb Volunteers killed thirty-four people and burned over 100 homes in the Tusus neighborhood of the city of Prizren, in an attempt to eradicate a dozen KLA insurgents.^[27]

Serbian victims

• Gnjilane massacre – 80 Serbs were discovered in mass graves having been killed by a group of Albanian militants.^[28]
• Orahovac massacre - More than 100 Serbian and Roma civilians kidnapped and placed in prison camps, 47 were executed.^[29]
• Klećka massacre, 1998 – Serbian government reported that 22 kidnapped Serbs were killed by the KLA.^[30][31]
• Ugljare massacre, 1998 – 15 Serbs were murdered by KLA insurgents.^[30]
• Lake Radonjić massacre, September 1998 - 37 bodies were found in mass graves having been massacred by the KLA.^{[32][33][34][35]} This massacre is seen as the main cause of the Serb Special Forces' crackdown on the KLA.^[36] In March 2005 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia charged three Kosovar Albanians with 30 murders relating to bodies found near Glodjane.^[37] Of the bodies recovered from Lake Radonjic, the Court found that KLA fighters were responsible for seven murders; all of whom were ethnic Albanians.^[38]
• Panda Bar massacre, 14 December 1998 – 6 Serb civilians killed and 14 wounded in attack on café in Peć, allegedly by KLA.
• Staro Gracko massacre, 23 July 1999 – 14 Serb farmers were murdered by the KLA.^[30]
• 1999–2000, Organ theft in Kosovo: In 2008, Carla Del Ponte published a book in which she alleged that, after the end of the war in 1999, Kosovo Albanians were smuggling organs of between 100 and 300 Serbs and other minorities from the province to Albania.^[39][40] In 2010, responding to Del Ponte's allegation, the head of the war crimes unit of EULEX (the European Law and Justice Mission in Kosovo), Matti Raatikainen, claimed "there is no evidence whatsoever in this case, no bodies. No witnesses."^[41] He said the allegations had "distracted" the war crimes unit from "finding the remains of close to 2,000 individuals of Serb, Albanian, and Roma ethnicity still missing in the conflict".^[41] Investigators from Serbia, the European Union, and the Council of Europe, also failed to uncover any evidence.^[41]

See also

• War crimes in the Kosovo War

References

1. Drenica Region Massacres (Feb-March 1998)
2. Milosevic trial
3. Krieger, Heike (2001). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-521-80071-4.
4. Global War Crimes Tribunal Collection: The Rwanda Tribunal. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
5. Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. Human Rights Watch. 2001. pp. 34, 96–7.
6. "Behind the Kosovo crisis". BBC. 12 March 2000.
7. "Kosovo killings: Belgrade's official version of events". BBC. 12 March 1998.
8. http://sim.law.uu.nl/sim/caselaw/tribunalen.nsf/ae4b0f7b22afa1cdc12571b500329d5e/0f58ad0e96d1e627c12571fe004c8cba?OpenDocument
9. "HUMANITARIAN LAW VIOLATIONS IN KOSOVO". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
10. Federal Republic of Serbia: A human rights crisis in Kosovo Province
11. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Refworld - A Week of Terror in Drenica: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo". Refworld. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
12. "A Week of Terror in Drenica: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo". UNHCR. 1 February 1999. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
13. Judah 2000, p. 193.
14. Serb Police Kill 24 Albanians in Kosovo
15. Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As Told, "Part V: The Municipalities - Rogovo", OSCE, 1999
16. "BBC News - Europe - New killings in Kosovo". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
17. Anthony DePalma (3 May 1999). "Survivor Tells of Massacre at Kosovo Village". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
18. "BBC News - EUROPE - Milosevic Indictment: Text". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
19. "Human Rights Watch, Kosovo: Focus on Human Rights". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
20. "Four Serb Policemen Jailed for Suva Reka Massacre". 25 April 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
21. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Kosovo): After tragedy, justice?
22. "UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 9. Orahovac Municipality". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
23. "UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 5. Drenica Region". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
24. "UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 6. Djakovica Municipality". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
25. American Public Media. "Qyshk". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
26. Under Orders. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
27. "UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 11. Prizren Municipality". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
28. News – Ex-KLAs sent to prison for 101 years. B92. Retrieved on 2011-04-30.
29. "B92 - News - 13 years since massacre of Serbs and Roma in Kosovo". B92. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
30. United Nations (22 February 2002). Yearbook of the United Nations 1999. United Nations Publications. pp. 367–. ISBN 978-92-1-100856-2. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
31. KLECKA MASSACRE – kosovo and metohija. Members.fortunecity.com (1998-08-27). Retrieved on 2011-04-30.
32. Heike Krieger (2001). The Kosovo conflict and international law: an analytical documentation 1974–1999. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–. ISBN 978-0-521-80071-6. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
33. "Kosovo Forensic Expert Team - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (complete)". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
34. Human Rights Watch. World Events 1999. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
35. "Fourth Revised Public Indictment Against Ramush Haradinaj et al para: 47-48". U.N. 16 October 2008. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
36. "UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 1. Executive Summary". Retrieved 6 April 2015.
37. "Trial Chamber Judgment Summary pages 3-4". United Nations. 3 April 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
38. "Trial Chamber Judgment Summary page 4". United Nations. 3 April 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
39. Marc Champion (14 April 2008). "Horrors Alleged in Kosovo". WSJ. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
40. "Trafic d'organes/Kosovo: 'aucune trace'". Le Figaro. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
41. "End of the road for Kosovo Organ Claims?". BBC. 27 May 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2013.

Sources

• Judah, Tim (2000). Kosovo: War and Revenge. Yale University Press. Retrieved 17 February 2013.

External links

• OSCE: Kosovo/Kosova - As Seen, As Told, 1999
• Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo (Human Right Watch)
• ICTY: Indictment of Milutinović et al., "Kosovo", September 5 2002
• Report of the UN Secretary-General, January 31, 1999
• Photographic Evidence of Kosovo Genocide and Conflict
• SERBIAN MASSACRES BEFORE NATO AIRSTRIKES
• Kosovo Genocide: Massacres
• The Kosovo Cover-Up
• Kosovo massacre trial
• Judgment in the Vlastimir Djorjevic case, February 23, 2011