YUGOSLAVIA: FIGHTING BREAKS OUT IN THE VILLAGE OF RACAK IN KOSOVO WHERE 45 ETHNIC ALBANIANS WERE KILLED EARLIER

Record ID: 375827

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: FIGHTING BREAKS OUT IN THE VILLAGE OF RACAK IN KOSOVO WHERE 45 ETHNIC ALBANIANS WERE KILLED EARLIER
  • Date: 17th January 1999
  • Summary: RACAK, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (JANUARY 17, 1998) (AGENCY POOL ACCESS ALL) 1. TV/SLV/MCU MORGUE, BODIES IN ROWS / VARIOUS AS RELATIVES IDENTIFY BODIES / MOURNING RELATIVES (5 SHOTS) 0.35 PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (JANUARY 16, 1999) (AGENCY POOL - ACCESS ALL) 2. LV OSCE CHIEF WILLIAM WALKER SEATED AT PRESS CONFERENCE 0.38 3. MCU (English
  • Embargoed: 1st February 1999 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: RACAK/PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA93D2F9EL3VGOOCZQOZV7MHRAQ
  • Story Text: Serbian police called in army reinforcements on Sunday
    as fighting broke out with ethnic Albanian guerrillas over the
    village of Racak in southern Kosovo, where 45 ethnic Albanians
    were killed two days earlier.

    Tensions rose sharply in the village of Racak on
    Sunday (January 17) as OSCE monitors withdrew from the area
    after an outbreak of unidentified gunfire near their
    obsevation positions.

    Shortly after OSCE observers who were at the scene earlier
    in the day fled Serbian forces began moving in reinforcements.

    Reporters said they saw a tank moving in the direction of the
    village.

    As the OSCE left Racak, a Yugoslav army armoured
    personnel carrier and a truck full of troops drove towards the
    village.Four Yugoslav police armoured personnel carriers
    followed.Bullets were fired over the heads of international
    monitors, reporters and police from an unknown source in an
    unknown position.

    Firing could be heard from both sides of the village,
    where the bodies of the dead ethnic Albanians, who Western
    officials said had been massacred on Friday by Serbian police,
    lay in the mosque.Scores of mourners arrived to view the
    remains of their relatives.There were tearful scenes as women
    with children broke down when they saw the bodies of their
    husbands and other menfolk.

    Many ethnic Albanian villagers fled Racak with their
    belongings on Sunday afternoon as machine gun and mortar fire
    rang out.

    International monitors had been in the village, hoping to
    prevent an outbreak of fighting.But they left as firing
    erupted over the houses from positions the police had earlier
    taken up on a nearby hill.

    They withdrew to a point outside the police station in
    Stimlje, where a Yugoslav investigator earlier rejected
    appeals by the deputy head of the international monitoring
    mission not to try to take a police escort to the village.

    Reporters and international monitors took cover as bullets
    landed near the road outside the police station in Stimlje.


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