| Drenica massacres | |
|---|---|
Municipalities of Glogovac and Skënderaj in Drenica region in central Kosovo. |
|
| Location | Drenica, Kosovo, FR Yugoslavia |
| Date | Feb-March 1998 March–June 1999 (Central European Time) |
| Target | Kosovo Albanians |
| Attack type | Mass Killings |
| Deaths | The attacks on the villages of Cirez, Likosane and Prekaz left 83 villagers dead, including at least 24 women and children.[1] |
| Perpetrator(s) | Serbian Police |
The Drenica massacres (Serbian: Масакри у Дреници, Masakri u Drenici, Albanian: Masakra në Drenicë) were a series of mass killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians committed by Serbian special police forces in Drenica region in central Kosovo.[2]
According to Human Rights Watch, abuses in the Drenica region during the Kosovo War 1998–1999 "were so widespread that a comprehensive description is beyond the scope of this report".[2] Key atrocities took place in the period of February–March 1998 in the Qirez, Likoshan and Prekaz and during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, from March to June 1999 in the villages of Izbica, Rezala, Poklek and Qikatova e vjetër (Staro Ćikatovo).[2]
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Drenica is a hilly region in central Kosovo inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Albanians.[1] The inhabitants of the region have a long tradition of strong resistance to outside powers, dating back to Ottoman rule in the Balkans.[1] The villages of Drenica region are the birthplace of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which began armed operations in Drenica in 1996. By 1997, Kosovo Albanians had begun to refer to Drenica as "liberated territory" because of the KLA presence.[1]
In January 1998, Serbian special police began operations that raided villages in Drenica linked to the KLA.[1] Between February 28 and March 5, police launched multiple military-style attacks on the villages of Qirez (Ćirez) and Likoshan (Likošane) and Prekaz, using armored vehicles and helicopters.[1] Although the KLA engaged in combat during these attacks, Serbian special forces fired indiscriminately at women, children, and other noncombatants.[2]
On February 28 and March 1, responding to KLA ambushes of the police, special forces attacked two adjacent villages, Qirez (Ćirez) and Likoshan (Likošane). According to Albanian sources there were 29 identified corpses of the Qirez and Likoshan massacres.[3] On March 5, special police attacked the nearby village of Prekaz - home of Adem Jashari, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Jashari was killed along with his entire family, including women and children.[2] The attacks, and the fighting that ensued, left 83 villagers dead, including at least 24 women and children.[1]
On March 3, 1998, some 50,000[4] people gathered for burial of 24 Drenica victims in the village of Likoshan. This "brutal and indiscriminate attacks" radicalized the Kosovo Albanian population and helped to crystallize armed opposition to Belgrade's rule.[2] Many ethnic Albanians who had been committed to the nonviolent politics of Ibrahim Rugova decided to join the KLA, in part because they viewed the armed insurgency as the only means of protection.[2] The various armed Kosovo Albanian groups active up to that point began to merge as a more organized popular resistance in Kosovo took shape.[2]
The Drenica massacres in 1998 marked the beginning of the Kosovo war. After February 28, 1998, the fighting clearly become an armed conflict.[2] Once armed conflict broke out, the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia over Kosovo began. On March 10 the Tribunal stated that its jurisdiction "covers the recent violence in Kosovo".[2]
The mass gravesAlbanian: Varre masive në Rudnicë, Drenicë from 1998-99 were found in Rudnica, Drenica with 250 bodies.[5][6][7][8][8][9][10]
Three months of terror followed, as Serbian police and paramilitaries backed by the army attacked and cleared of its civilian population village after village in its efforts to destroy both the KLA and its base of support. Adult males were detained en masse and hundreds were executed. Killings were not confined to persons regarded as potential combatants. As with earlier massacres in Obri i eperme (Gornje Obrinje) and Reçak (Račak), women and children from the families of persons linked to the KLA were also killed.[1]
— Report of the Human Right Watch
Between March 19 and June 15, 1999, Serbian and Yugoslav forces in Drenica engaged in "a brutal campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Albanians of Kosova that involved summary and arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions, regular beatings, widespread looting, and the destruction of schools, hospitals, and other civilian objects".[11]
Gllogovc (Glogovac), a municipality that was a stronghold of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Drenica, was especially hard hit in this campaign. In Poklek i Vjetër (Stari Poklek), a village close to Gllogovc, Serb and Yugoslav forces executed two men and the family of one of the men due to KLA links. Out of 47 family members that the Serb and Yugoslav forces attempted to kill with a grenade thrown into a room, there were six survivors.[11] In Vërbovc (Vrbovac), it is believed that 80-150 people were executed.[11] Albanians, KLA members, suspected KLA members and their families in other villages surrounding Gllogovc were also subject to execution by Serb and Yugoslav forces. In Gllogovc, over five days in May, the majority of the population was "expelled from the town…and sent toward the Macedonian border."[11]
In Cikatovo, more than 100 ethnic Albanians were executed by Serb forces and buried at a mass grave site, according to war crimes investigators.[12]
In 1999, on June 15, the Serb and Yugoslav forces withdrew from Gllogovc following an agreement signed by NATO and the Yugoslavian military leadership.[11]