TIRANA, Jan 15 /ATA/ – The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Olta Xhaçka commemorated Sunday the 24th anniversary of the Reçak Massacre, where the Serbian police and military forces murdered 45 people in the village of Reçak, Kosovo, a horrendous crime that raised awareness of the international diplomacy and an important factor in NATO’s decision to launch air strikes on former Yugoslavia two months later.
“Today we honor the memory of 45 innocent men, women and children that were massacred in Reçak by the Serbian regime in an act of deliberate and indiscriminate murder,” Foreign Minister said in a post via the social media, stating that crimes committed by the Serbian regime in Kosovo still call for justice.
The Albanian diplomacy chief notes that their memory and the memory of the thousands of men, women and children killed in countless other war crimes committed by the Serbian regime in Kosovo still calls for justice and reconciliation.
Xhaçka went on saying that the massacre also serves as a powerful reminder of how much our whole region needs to work together to build a future of peace and prosperity governed by a philosophy that rejects the genocide mentality that was responsible for the Reçak Massacre.
On January 15, 1999, during the Kosovo War, 45 people were murdered in the massacre when Serbian forces surrounded the village of Reçak, attacked it, and raided houses. Men were dragged from their homes, beaten and then shot, women were sexually assaulted and raped. Serbia initially stated that those killed were Kosovo Liberation Army militants but this was not the case.
The Recak massacre was witnessed by the head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, William Walker. He was the first international official to state there were “crimes against humanity” happening in Kosovo while visiting the crime scene in the village.
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