Serbia marks 20 years since Nato bombing campaign

BELGRADE: Serbia on Sunday marked 20 years since the Nato air strikes that forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, ending a conflict that claimed more than 13,000 lives.

After the operation to get president Slobodan Milosevic to stop his deadly crackdown on Kosovo separatists, the former Serbian province, mainly ethnic Albanian, was put under United Nations administration.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 — which Serbia refuses to recognise.

Commemorations were held across the country to recall the start of “Nato aggression”, with a main ceremony in the southern town of Nis, which Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said drew 20,000 people.

The sound of an air raid siren kicked off the ceremony at 7.45pm, the minute when the strikes began on March 24, 1999, and the airing of scenes of the bombings on a big screen.

“These are the most tragic days of our history,” Orthodox Serbian Patriarch Irinej told the crowd, many holding candles.

“What is even more tragic is that it involved our former allies, our former friends.”

Milosevic ordered his troops out of Kosovo on June 10, 1999.

“We were alone in the face of the biggest military power in the world,” said President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultra-nationalist who became a centrist and wants his country to join the European Union.

“Their goal was clear: to beat us and humiliate us, and then give part of our territory to someone else,” he said.

Citing 2,500 civilians dead including 79 children and a “devastated country”, he said the bombing campaign would “always be a crime”.

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, for his part, said on Saturday that “Nato’s intervention in Milosevic’s genocidal action against people of Kosovo was crucial humanitarian contribution”.

Writing on Twitter, he added: “The people of Kosovo will always reaffirm the profound gratitude for saving thousands of lives and giving us the opportunity to live in peace and freedom.”