KOSOVO HUMAN RIGHTS FLASH #28
KILLINGS AND SCORCHED EARTH IN SOUTHERN
KOSOVO

For further information contact:
Fred Abrahams (New York): 1-212-216-1270
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838

(New York, April 20, 1999, 1:45pm EDT)—Over the past ten
days, Human Rights Watch researchers in Macedonia
independently interviewed more than twenty refugees from
villages in the area between Urosevac (Ferizaj in Albanian) and
the Macedonian border. The refugees, many of whom were on
the move inside Kosovo for more than two weeks, described
military style operations against their home villages, including
heavy shelling and the use of tanks, followed by the wholesale
burning of villages and crops and the deliberate slaughter of
livestock. Refugees from several villages also provided consistent
accounts of the killing of civilians by Serbian police and
paramilitary units, as well as reports that some of the corpses had
been mutilated.

In the village of Bajnica (close to Doganovic), eyewitnesses
described how tanks entered the village without warning on the
morning of April 3, followed by Serbian police and paramilitaries
who set fire to houses, shot farm animals and beat residents in the
street. Qamil Rhexepi, a sixty-year-old resident of Bajnica, and
Demir Sulemani, a forty-eight-year-old man from Brod, were
shot by Serbian forces during the operation, witnesses said. One
witness saw Rhexepi being shot by masked men in green
camouflage uniforms as he tried to flee the village. When the
witness and three other men, all interviewed separately by
Human Rights Watch, returned to the scene of the shooting later
that day, they found the mutilated bodies of Rhexepi and
Sulemani. Sulemani's eyes had been removed, and his throat had
been cut, they all said. Describing the scene, one of the witnesses
said: "the village was destroyed -- it was horrible to see. They
just did it so we can't go back."

A refugee from the village of Rakaj told Human Rights Watch
that Serbian police had entered the village on April 3, forcing the
residents to flee to neighboring Cakaj. The village was
subsequently looted and burned, he said. On Tuesday, April 13,
Cakaj's inhabitants and those being sheltered there (including
persons from nearby Lamaj and Duraj) also fled after Duraj was
shelled at around 11:00 a.m. The women, children and elderly,
who took refuge in a canyon, were subsequently caught by
armed police in masks who told them that they "couldn't leave
until they [the police] had burned all the houses."

Three witnesses hiding in the area heard shots after three men
(forty-year-old Shiqiri Halili, forty-year-old Jakup Caka, and
forty-six-year-old Mahmut Caka) tried to escape from the area
around the canyon. After the police left around 3:00 p.m., one
witnesses found Halili shot eight times, but still alive. Nearby, the
witness said, were the mutilated corpses of Jakup and Mahmut
Caka. Halili died later that same day.

Four witnesses interviewed by a Human Rights Watch researcher
indicated that an additional eight bodies were discovered when
the villagers returned to Cakaj, bringing the number of dead to
eleven. Those killed included: Rahman Lama, 50; Ibrahim Lama,
20; Habib Lami, 18; Ilir Caka 19; and Qemal and Sabri Saliu, as
well as their brother. The village was completely burned,
witnesses said, including the bodies of farm animals.

Human Rights Watch representatives also spoke with multiple
witnesses from the area who claimed that the police had
destroyed the following villages: Slatin, Gabrica, Elezaj, Gatchka,
Duraj and Lamaj. Three witnesses from the village of Firaj (on
the road between Strpce and Brod) interviewed independently
by Human Rights Watch also reported forcible evictions and
scorched earth tactics in their area. They described the
widespread looting and burning of villages, including Firaj, Brod,
Vica, Upper and Lower Bitinja.

These interviews indicate a consistent pattern of killings and literal
scorched earth tactics by Serbian and Yugoslav forces in the
southern region of Kosovo. Most villages along the Macedonian
border have been ethnically cleansed and destroyed.

For further information contact:
Fred Abrahams: 1-212-216-1270
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838