Serbia remembers NATO bombing form 21 years ago

This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, there won’t be public events marking the anniversary.

During the bombing dubbed ‘The Angel of Mercy’ that lasted 78 days, an unofficial data said that some 2,500 civilians and about 1,000 soldiers were killed, while infrastructure, business objects, health institutions, state RTS TV main building and military premises were heavily damaged.

NATO intervention followed a war in Kosovo where the guerilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fought against Belgrade military and police forces, seeking independence from Serbia.

 The bombing started after the failure of the Serb side to accept the solution to Kosovo crisis while Pristina accepted an agreement reached during the international community-brokered weeks of negotiations at Rambulliet and the final signing in Paris in February and March 1999 respectively.

The intervention, which FRY authorities and some legal experts described as aggression, since it did not have the UN Security Council’s green light, but was based on the General Assembly decision to avoid a possible veto by either Russia or China.

 It all ended when in an agreement which the then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic finally signed the so-called Kumanovo agreement on June 10, 1999, stipulating the withdrawal of the FRY forces from Kosovo and the adoption of the Resolution 1244 which remained neutral on Kosovo’s final status.

 According to the UNHCR data, after peacekeeping forces replaced FRY military and police, some 230,000 local Serbs and Roma left Kosovo, while some 800,000 Albanians returned.