A number of commemorations and wreath-laying ceremonies were held in Serbia on Sunday in tribute to military and civilian victims of a NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which started on March 24 and ended on June 10, 1999.
The central ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the NATO air campaign will be held in Nis at 7.45pm, a symbolic reminder of the time when the first NATO bombs were dropped on the country two decades ago.
According to official data, during the 78-day campaign, around 2,500 civilians were killed, more than 12,500 were wounded or injured, and 1,008 army and police members were killed or went missing.
NATO targeted transport and telecommunication infrastructure, military and business facilities and media companies. A total of 25,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged, 470 kilometres of roads and 595 kilometres of railways were disabled, 14 military and civilian airports were damaged, as were 39 hospitals and clinics, 18 kindergartens, 176 cultural monuments and 44 bridges.
For the first time in the country’s more recent history, a media company was targeted, and 16 employees of the RTS public broadcaster were killed in the bombing. Extensive damage was also caused to the public broadcaster of the northern province of Vojvodina.
The then Yugoslav government and numerous legal experts called the NATO campaign an act of aggression, while NATO and the international community said the campaign had been triggered by a humanitarian disaster caused by conflicts in Kosovo, accusing the regime of Slobodan Milosevic and military and police forces as well as paramilitaries of expulsions and killings of Kosovo Albanians.
The air campaign was launched after negotiations on the Kosovo crisis in Rambouillet and Paris in February and March 1999 failed.
The campaign, launched without the consent and approval of the UN Security Council, ended on June 10 with the adoption of UN Resolution 1244 which enabled the deployment of international forces in Kosovo. The day before, representatives of the Yugoslav Army and NATO signed in Kumanovo, Macedonia, a military-technical agreement whereby the Yugoslav Army agreed to its withdrawal from Kosovo and the deployment of international forces.
In the following days, around 230,000 Kosovo residents, mostly Serbs, left Kosovo as well.
Twenty years later, Serbia-Kosovo relations remain undefined.
The government in Pristina on 17 February 2008 unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, an act which Serbia does not recognise.
In April 2013 Belgrade and Pristina agreed, under the aegis of the European Union, to normalise their relations, however, the agreement has not been fully implemented.
In light of the continued crisis of the talks, the international community has insisted that the two sides should reach a legally binding agreement which Belgrade interprets as a compromise while Pristina insists on mutual recognition, which would enable Kosovo’s accession to the UN and other international organisations.
