1998-present persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo

Persecution of non-Albanians, mostly Serbs, by Kosovo Albanian extremists occurred during and after the 1998-1999 Kosovo War. Serbs claim the persecution amounts to ethnic cleansing. The KLA was responsible for serious abuses in 1998 and after the NATO troops arrival in Kosovo, including abductions and murders of Serbs and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword.htm UNDER ORDERS: War Crimes in Kosovo - 1. Executive Summary ] ]

War crimes

Killed and missing civilians

In some villages under KLA control in 1998, the rebels drove ethnic Serbs from their homes. Some of those who remained are unaccounted for and are presumed to have been abducted by the KLA and killed. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, ninety-seven Kosovo Serbs who went missing in 1998 were still missing as of May 15, 2000.

The exact number of victims of the KLA is not known. According to a Serbian government report, from January 1 1998 to June 10 1999 the KLA killed 988 people and kidnapped 287; in the period from June 10 1999 to November 11 2001, when NATO took control in Kosovo, 847 were reported to have been killed and 1,154 kidnapped. This comprised both civilians and security force personnel: of those killed in the first period, 335 were civilians, 351 soldiers, 230 police and 72 were unidentified; by nationality, 87 of killed civilians were Serbs, 230 Albanians, and 18 of other nationalities. Following the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo in June 1999, all casualties were civilians, the vast majority being Serbs. According to Human Rights Watch, as “"many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since June 12 1999".” [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword.htm] . [http://www.arhiva.serbia.sr.gov.yu/news/2002-07/08/325076.html Victims of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo-Metohija (Killed, kidnapped, and missing persons, January 1998 - November 2001)]
[http://www.arhiva.srbija.sr.gov.yu/vesti/2002-05/25/326656.html Žrtve albanskog terorizma na Kosovu i Metohiji (Ubijena, oteta i nestala lica, januar 1998 - novembar 2001)] ] Since June 12, 1999, as many as 1,000 Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing as a result of KLA elements and possibly criminal gangs or vengeful individuals.

Civilians driven from their homes

An estimated 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo after the war. [ [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/18/serbia8129.htm Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence (Human Rights Watch)] ] Gypsies were also driven out after being harassed by Albanians. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword.htm Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo] , Human Rights Watch.] The Yugoslav Red Cross had also registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The new exodus was a severe embarrassment to NATO, which had established a peacekeeping force of 45,000 under the auspices of the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK).

Timeline of attacks

1998

The KLA detained an estimated eighty-five Serbs during its July 19, 1998, attack on Orahovac. Thirty-five of these people were subsequently released but the others remain. On July 22, 1998, the KLA briefly took control of the Belacevac mine near Obilic. Nine Serbs were captured that day, and they remain on the ICRC's list of the missing.

In August 1998, twenty-two Serbian civilians were reportedly killed in the village of Klecka, where the police claimed to have discovered human remains and a kiln used to cremate the bodies.

In September 1998, the Serbian police collected thirty-four bodies of people believed to have been seized and murdered by the KLA, among them some ethnic Albanians, at Lake Radonjic near Glodjane (Gllogjan).

1999

Carla Del Ponte, a long-time ICTY chief prosecutor claimed in her book "" that there were instances of organ trafficking in 1999. According to the book about 300 non-Albanians, mostly ethnic Serbs, were kidnapped and transferred to Albania in 1999 where their organs were extracted.The Daily Telegraph, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/11/wserb111.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox Serb prisoners 'were stripped of their organs in Kosovo war'] , 14.04.2008] These allegations were denied by Kosovan and Albanian authorities. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had said of Del Ponte's allegations: "The Tribunal is aware of very serious allegations of human organ trafficking raised by the former Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, in a book recently published in Italian under her name. No evidence in support of such allegations was ever brought before the Tribunal’s judges." [ [http://www.un.org/icty/briefing/2008/pb080416.htm ICTY Weekly Press Briefing ] ]

The Human Rights Watch called Del Ponte's allegations "serious and credible" and issued a public call to Tirana and Pristina for cooperation. [BBC, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7384679.stm Kosovo 'organs sale' probe urged] , 06.05.2008]

A Serbian newspaper, Večernje Novosti, published photos in 2003 of men in Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms holding decapitated heads. According to the paper, the Albanian terrorists commited the crime in April 1999, during the Kosovo War. [http://www.kosovo.net/kla_decapit.jpg] [http://www.ex-yupress.com/evnovosti/evnovosti13.html]

2001

On February 16, 2001, a bus carrying Serb civilians on a "commemoration mission" to family graves in Albanian-controlled territory was destroyed by a roadside bomb at a spot near Podujevo, en route to Gračanica, killing 12. It was one in a convoy of five buses carrying 250 people from the city of Niš, escorted by armoured personnel carriers from the Swedish contingent of the KFOR peacekeeping force. According to KFOR's regional commander, the bomb comprised between 100-200 lb of high explosive, detonated using a command wire. ["Ruthless murder of Serbs on road to family graves", "The Birmingham Post", 17 February 2001] . (see Podujevo bus bombing)

On April 30 2001, an 18-year-old was shot twice and killed whilst walking with his sister and a friend in the Vitina market place. He was killed simply because he was a Serb. In the course of the incident, one of the shots fired by the gunman by chance hit an Albanian man sitting in his car nearby causing him serious injuries. [ [http://www.unmikonline.org/pub/focuskos/apr02/focusklaw3.htm Focus Kosovo - Law, Justice and Public Safety ] ]

2003

On August 13, 2003 two youths from the minority Serb community in Kosovo were killed in an attack by unknown gunmen. Six other people were injured in the attack, which took place as they were swimming in a river near the western village of Goraždevac. The attackers were waiting for the swimmers and opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles from the bushes. The dead and injured youths were aged between 10 and 20. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3148793.stm BBC NEWS | Europe | Two Serbs die in Kosovo attack ] ]

2004

In March 2004, Kosovo experienced its worst inter-ethnic violence since the Kosovo War. The unrest in 2004 was sparked by a series of minor events that soon cascaded into large-scale riots. Protesting, the Kosovo Albanians mobs burned hundreds of Serbian houses, Serbian Orthodox Church sites (including some 150-300 medieval churches and monasteries) and UN facilities.

References

See also

*Ethnic persecution
*Ethnic cleansing