Human Rights Violations against Non-albanian Kosovars

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# The regime doesn't help refugees from Kosovo
# Violence in Kosovo continues
# Kosovo faces epidemics?
# Serbs, Burying Couple, Blame U.S. Soldiers / Say NATO not halting attacks
# Orthodox Press: Kosovo and Metohija Chronicle, August 18

Wednesday, August 18th, 1999
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The regime doesn't help refugees from Kosovo

Yugoslav opposition activists accused the government on Wednesday of treating Serb refugees from Kosovo as nonexistent people and preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid. ``The latest figures regarding the humanitarian situation in Serbia are shocking, especially the fact that the regime is preventing the distribution of aid to people who need the assistance the most. That is a crime against its own citizens," said Branislav Canak, chairman of Yugoslav Action. Yugoslav Action, an umbrella organization made up of the independent trade union confederation ``Nezavisnost" and 50 nongovernmental organizations, was established during NATO's air strike campaign against Yugoslavia over Kosovo.

Violence in Kosovo continues

Three Serbs were wounded in a granade explosion yesterday night in Gnjilane, in the United States' sector, in southeastern Kosovo. KFOR gave no details of the incident. Italian troopers in Djakovica, as well as German troopers in Prizren confiscated some guns and ammunition.

Kosovo faces epidemics?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Wednesday that Kosovo faced possible epidemics of major diseases unless public health systems were promptly restored after nearly two years of fighting. The Geneva-based United Nations agency said that suspected cases of polio, hepatitis and haemorrhagic fever had been registered in the province in the past few days, the first since NATO peacekeepers moved into the Yugoslav province in June. "There is an urgent need to implement immunization programs as soon as possible," said Maire Connolly, a medical officer with the WHO's Department of Emergency and Humanitarian Action.

Serbs, Burying Couple, Blame U.S. Soldiers / Say NATO not halting attacks

By Philip Smucker. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

      SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Banja e Kllokotit, Kosova, - Angry Serbs scolded U.S. NATO soldiers for not protecting them yesterday as they buried a young couple killed by mortar fire blamed on militants in a nearby ethnic Albanian village.
    "Are the Americans here to keep the peace?" shouted Danica Stankovic, 70, who watched several hundred of her fellow villagers wind up a hill toward a graveyard beside a small U.S. military base. "We have nowhere to go and no one to help us. They'll kill us all right in front  of NATO and no one is going to shed a tear." Tihomir Radic, 24, was strolling with Silvana Svilanovic, 23, shortly after nightfall Monday when a barrage of at least nine mortar rounds struck.
    "The male was dead immediately, and we did what we could for 10 minutes to save the woman but it wasn't enough," said U.S. Army Cpl. Mike Sibert.
    Bloody gauze, clumps of singed hair and four pairs of plastic gloves were scattered near two drying pools of blood.
    NATO officers said the attack was the third on Banja e Kllokotit in a week. Several homes in the Serb village of 1,300 took direct hits through their roofs. A "crater analysis" was being conducted at the scene of the killing to verify the exact direction of the mortar fire, but Sibert said "we have a pretty good idea of where it is coming from."
NATO forces are trying desperately to track down Albanian extremists believed responsible for such attacks, but their efforts have been hampered by a state of fear that keeps Albanian civilians from cooperating.
    The Kosova Liberation Army's chief of staff, Gen. Agim Çeku, denied yesterday that his army was involved in attacks against Serbian citizens. Çeku said, "The KLA is the army of all the citizens of Kosova." Senior UN officials warn that a complete exodus of Serbs, whose population has dwindled by about 80 percent to no more than 30,000 civilians, will spell defeat for the international peacekeeping efforts in Kosova.
    The UN refugee agency has a policy of helping people stay in their homes. But "priority has to be given to saving lives when we think that lives are at risk," Judith Kumin, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said yesterday.
    In Moscow, senior Foreign Ministry officials blasted Western powers yesterday for neglecting what it described as "ethnic cleansing" by Albanian forces in Kosova and urged swift action to end violence in the province and disarm local guerrillas.
    One of the shells Monday evening hit an American latrine behind a schoolhouse being used by NATO to house troops. "If any of our men had been called by nature, they'd be dead now," said Staff Sgt. Lawrence Ebert, who was on patrol when the mortar barrage began.

DATE:  08-18-1999

Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church
PRAVOSLAVLJE PRESS

Kosovo & Metohia Events
Belgrade, August 18, 1999
Today's report on the victims in Kosovo and Metohia is the following:

Last night in Gnjilane, the Albanians inflicted wounds to seven Serbs, out of which Zlatka Antic has been seriously hurt, and Bosiljka and Snezana Stankovic have suffered minor injuries.
     Yesterday in the morning, Lefterija Maric (aged 65), whom the Albanians had maltreated many times earlier, was seriously wounded in her house in Gnjilane.
     Last night, the Albanians wounded Ikonija Jovic in Ravniste village, near Vitina. She was several times hit by a blunt weapon on the head. Ikonija and her daughter Vukica, who managed to hide while her mother endured suffering, are the last Serbs who have stayed, at least up to now, in Ravniste village.
     The Albanians cast a grenade at Sasa Ilic's car in Vitina, last night. Sasa has suffered minor injuries.
     Radmila Nojic was beaten last night in Gnjilane; thereat her cheekbone has been broken.
     It was reported last night in Pristina that Dejan Vasovic from Kragujevac was missing. There has been no trace of Dejan since August 11, this year, in Sirakovac village.
     Last night in Pristina, a grenade was cast at Aleksandar Stojanovic's house. Aleksandar has been seriously injured in the chest and in the belly. He has been transported today into a hospital in Nis.
     The Albanians beat Desanka and Slavica Peric in Pristina last night

Bishop Atanasije
Rakita

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