Human Casualties in the War and Immediate Post war Period in Kosovo

Each human casualty is tragic but comparing the figures might help us see better what was Kosovo war fought for and what was its true impact.

2,108 Bodies found in 1999 season of forensic investigation

420 Albanians killed since Kfor/KLA occupation began (Kfor number June 99 through March 00; 400 murdered)

1041 Non-Albanians killed since Kfor/KLA occupation began (number cited in http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html)*

680 Bodies found in 2000 season of forensic investigation

4,249 Total Victims

2.67% less percentage applied those who died natural deaths ( from Spanish )

4,135 Sub-Total Died as result of War

2.67% less percentage applied those who were Yugoslav soldiers 111 Yugslav Soldiers (est)

4,025 Sub-Total excluding Yugoslav soldiers

875 less estimated KLA KIA'd ( high figure is 1,500 low figure is 250)

3,150 Sub-Total Non-Combatants

2,467 Killed by NATO/KLA (breakdown below)

22 Klecka KLA possibly under Agim Ceku (cited as part of 2000 investigation in http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html)*

34 Glodjane KLA possibly under Ramush (cited as part of 2000 investigation in http://www.sunday- times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html)*

50 Orahovac (cited as part of 2000 investigation in http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html)*

68 Markovac KLA under Commander Remi ( cited as part of Remi's forced expulsion of 160,000 civilians on BBC program and in J. Steele Guardian article July 1999)

97 Istok ( Died as a result of 3 days of NATO bombing, Spanish Interview )

39 Kacanik (Albanian loyalists killed by 162nd UCK brigade in mid March; before bombing)

45 Kotlina (Albanian loyalists killed by 162nd UCK brigade before bombing)

70 Velika Kusa ( out of 74 found )

30 Djakovica ( loyalist town, heavily bombed by NATO under KLA direction)

10 Ljubenic ( mixed Albanian-Roma loyalist village)

30 Pec ( out of 65 found, 15 before bombing, mostly wealthly anti-UCK killed, possibly under Ramush'es or Drini's orders)

7 Kosovo Polje ( mixed population loyalist town)

20 Pec bus (Albanians killed by NATO bombs at crossroad)

75 Bedded down for the night

84 Korisa Convoy

5 Pristina (T. Watson witnessed a number of Albanians killed by bombs)

140 Dragoban Cemetary (Non-Albanian)

166 Dragoban Cemetary (Albanians)

4 Rugova (4 hijacked by UCK, 20 additional UCK fighters KIA'd when KLA dropped grenade in hijacked van)

4 Decani (4 members of loyalist militia)

5 Gologovac (killed by UCK in Jan/Feb)

1 Suad Qorraj(allegedly by Ramush in June 1999) Sunday Observer, Sept 10, 2000, by Nick Wood "US 'covered up' for Kosovo Ally" )

420 Albanians killed since Kfor/KLA occupation began (Kfor number June 99 through March 00; 400 murdered)

1041 Non-Albanians killed since Kfor/KLA occupation began (number cited in http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html)*

683 Sub-Total Potential victims of Yugoslav or NATO/KLA forces

78% Percent of Non-Combatants killed by NATO/KLA action

22% Percent of Non-Combatants killed either by NATO/KLA or by Yugoslav forces

SOURCE: http://www.decani.yunet.com/victims.html

* http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/09/03/stifgneur02004.html has been removed from the Sunday Times website. The same article may be viewed at: http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/sept00/hed545.shtml

We are also making the entire text of the article available below.

THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK), Sunday, September 3, 2000 EUROPE
KLA faces trials for war crimes on Serbs

Inquiry turns on Albanians

Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent

INTERNATIONAL war crimes investigators are for the first time focusing on atrocities against Serbian civilians that were committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Sources close to prosecutors in the Hague confirmed last week that its forensic experts were checking five sites where war crimes were allegedly carried out by members of the KLA. Their findings could lead to a request to Nato's Kfor troops to arrest several senior figures in the new Kosovo Albanian elite, including possibly Hashim Thaci, the KLA's former political leader, or Ramush Haridinaj, one of his main political rivals.

United Nations sources have already revealed that Agim Ceku, the guerrillas' former commander, may be the subject of a secret "sealed" indictment for his activities while fighting for the Croatian army against the Serbs. Like Thaci and Haridinaj, Ceku, who now heads the Kosovo Protection Corps, the local defence force, has denied wrong-doing.

The investigation could radically alter the international perception of the conflict, in which Albanians were seen as the largely innocent victims of Serbian aggression. After a year of growing concern about hundreds of revenge killings of Serbs by Albanians in the province, there are signs that the public relations pendulum may begin to swing the Serbs' way.

The investigations by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are among its most secretive, with officials fearing retaliation by the Albanians. "The operations of the KLA clearly involved many activities we should scrutinise," said one Hague official.

"There's a real problem in unravelling their cell structure, but we may well end up pointing the finger at senior figures. The difficulty then will be persuading any Nato nation to arrest them."

All five sites were discovered by the Serbian police as they regained territory lost to the KLA in the summer of 1998. As Albanian villages were being destroyed in the Serbian police offensives that grabbed the international media spotlight, the plight of the rural Serbian peasantry was often ignored and dozens of villagers and farmers were abducted, tortured and left in mass graves.

Three of the areas under investigation are thought to be the villages of Klecka and Glodjane and the town of Orahovac.

The killings in Klecka have been linked to Thaci, who now heads the Democratic party of Kosovo. The Belgrade media made great play of the discovery in August 1998 of what it claimed were 22 Serbian bodies in a lime kiln in Klecka.

Glodjane, further west in the Decane area bordering Albania, was fiercely contested by the Serbs and Albanians. In September 1998 the Serbian media centre in Pristina claimed that the bodies of 34 people had been found in a canal there. They were a mixture of Serbian farmers, some gypsies and Albanians suspected of being collaborators. The local commander at the time was Haradinaj, now head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.

In Orahovac, an ancient Balkan maze of cobbled streets and mixed ethnicities, at least 50 Serbs were abducted by the KLA in July 1998, never to be seen again. In the autumn hundreds of angry Serbs marched six miles through the hills to Dragobilj, the local KLA headquarters and one of the few places where Islamic mujaheddin fighters were seen. The protest failed to persuade the KLA to give any details of the missing Serbs.

Most inquiries made so far have been met with silence and few witnesses are thought likely to be brave enough to reveal the brutality of the KLA.

One former Albanian commander, who now lives in the West, told The Sunday Times that he saw two Serbian policemen tied to the backs of Jeeps and dragged to their deaths during the fighting around Glodjane. He said he had no intention of talking to the war crimes prosecutors and wished to forget Kosovo altogether.

The Serbs, too, are unlikely to co-operate with the Hague because Belgrade refuses to recognise the tribunal. Milosevic and Milan Milutinovic, the Serbian president, are both indicted by the tribunal, and Milosevic is believed to have offered a bolthole to Radovan Karadzic, the most wanted suspect of the Bosnian conflict.

"We're not permitted to make any interviews in Serbia proper and that is a considerable hindrance," said Paul Risley, spokesman for Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's senior prosecutor.

It is also not clear whether investigations into the KLA's activities can be extended into the period after Nato entered Kosovo in June 1999. Authorities in Belgrade claim there have been 1,041 murders in the province since then - with 910 of the victims being Serbs or Montenegrins. In the most recent attacks on Serbs, an eight-year-old child was killed by a hit-and-run driver near the town of Lipljan last month, and a hand grenade was lobbed into a basketball court injuring 10 children north of Pristina. A farmer aged 80 was machine-gunned to death in the nearby village of Crkvna Vodica while he was tending his cattle.

The claims of genocide being made by the Albanians at Belgrade two years ago are now being thrown back at them, but the war crimes tribunal remains dispassionate. "We're not seeing genocide at the moment, but severe human rights violations. There is no evidence that any group wants to annihilate the Serbs rather than just force them out," said an official.