List of massacres in Kosovo

This is a list of mass executions and massacres in the Kosovo War.

List

• 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.^[7]
• 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.^[8]
• 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.^[9]
• 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.^[9]
• April 17, 1999, Ćikatovo massacre — Serb Paramilitaries killed twenty-four men from the Morina family that were suspected of being KLA members.^[9]
• 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.^[10]
• 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.^[11]
• May 22, 1999, Dubrava Prison Massacre — Serbian prison guards killed more than 70 Albanian prisoners.^[12]
• 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.^[13]
• Gnjilane massacre – 80 Serbs were discovered in mass graves having been killed by a group of Albanian militants.^[14]
• Orahovac massacre - More than 100 Serbian and Roma civilians kidnapped and placed in prison camps, 47 were executed.^[15]
• Klećka massacre, 1998 – Serbian government reported that 22 kidnapped Serbs were killed by the KLA.^[16][17]
• Ugljare massacre, 1998 – 15 Serbs were murdered by KLA insurgents.^[16]
• Lake Radonjić massacre, September 1998 - 37 bodies were found in mass graves having been massacred by the KLA.^{[18][19][20][21]} This massacre is seen as the main cause of the Serb Special Forces' crackdown on the KLA.^[22] In March 2005 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia charged three Kosovar Albanians with 30 murders relating to bodies found near Glodjane.^[23] Of the bodies recovered from Lake Radonjic, the Court found that KLA fighters were responsible for seven murders; all of whom were ethnic Albanians.^[24]
• 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.^[16]
• 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.^[25][26] 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."^[27] 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".^[27] Investigators from Serbia, the European Union, and the Council of Europe, also failed to uncover any evidence.^[27]

See also

• War crimes in the Kosovo War

References

Sources

• Judah, Tim (2000). Kosovo: War and Revenge. Yale University Press. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
• Krieger, Heike (2001). The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999. Cambridge University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-521-80071-4. 

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