PRISHTINA, Jan 15 /ATA/ – Survivors and relatives remember the 45 innocent Albanian civilians killed in an assault by the Serbian troops in the village of Reçak, Kosovo.
Former Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, veteran US diplomat William Walker visited the village one day after and publicly declared it as a massacre by Serb security forces, describing it a crime against humanity.
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. Serb army and paramilitaries bombarded the village and then raided houses and 45 men, women, teenagers and children were taken from their homes and beaten and shot in the hills above the village. Serbia initially stated that those killed were Kosovo Liberation Army militants but this was not the case.
The bloodshed became a turning point in the conflict between the Serb-led Yugoslav security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), fighting for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia after the breakup up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The Massacre garnered attention of the civilized Western world and paved the way for the US-led NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo to drive out Slobodan Milosevic’s forces out of the country.
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