Evidence Reveals Serbian Officers’ Role in Kosovo Massacre was Ignored

From their home on a hill, they saw buildings burning. At sunset, a battalion of Serbian police surrounded people's houses.

Krasniqi's eyes filled with tears as he recalled the moment when troops seized his brothers Pashk and Mark and his uncle Pjeter.

"They ordered us to leave, telling us to stop at the checkpoint between Meja and Korenica," Krasniqi told BIRN at his house in the village of Ramoc.

Gjakova/Djakovica in 1999. Photo: Shkelzen Rexha.

As dusk fell and Krasniqi headed for the checkpoint along with the rest of his family and his neighbours, they saw dead bodies and houses burning.

"By the light of the flames, we saw soldiers and police by the road and around ten people lying in the meadow close to the crossroads," he said.

At the checkpoint, they were ordered to give the police any money and jewellery they had, and to leave for Albania.

Serbian forces' attack on Meja and Korenica came a month after the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which was aimed at ending President Slobodan Milosevic's military campaign in Kosovo.

As NATO's air strikes intensified, so did Serbian army and police operations, and the killings and expulsions of Kosovo Albanians.

According to verdicts handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in cases against Serbian military and police officials, the attacks on the two villages were part of a military operation called Reka, in which the Yugoslav Army, Serbian police and paramilitary units killed at least 377 civilians, of whom 36 were under 18 years old. Thousands were expelled to neighbouring Albania, and 13 people are still listed as missing.

"Later we realised that we were the last to be deported and my family members the...

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