Murdered Serb buried Beta

Murdered Serb buried
Beta - August 19, 2003

SKULANOVO -- Tuesday – Hundreds of Serbs today attended the funeral of Dragan Tonic in the Serbian Orthodox cemetery near Lipljan.

Tonic was attacked by unknown gunmen on August 11 and died yesterday of wounds to the head.

He was the third Serb to die from violence in the village of Skulanevo since the arrival of international peacekeepers. Another five people, three of them children, have been wounded in the same period.

Local Serbs say that Tonic was killed by Albanian extremists who first beat him then shot him in the mouth.

Mourners, including Kosovo Serb leader Momcilo Trajkovic, heard Lipljan priest Randjel Denic call on Serbs to find the strength to stay in Kosovo, despite it being “soaked in Serb blood”.