- Title: YUGOSLAVIA/ITALY/MACEDONIA: KOSOVO FIGHTING CONTINUES/ LATEST.
- Date: 23rd March 1999
- Summary: PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. TV: VIEW OF PRISTINA 0.05 2. LV: WELL ARMED POLICE ON CORNER OF ROAD 0.09 3. GV/CU/TILT: AFTERMATH OF BOMB EXPLOSION (3 SHOTS) 0.25 4. GV/PAN: VARIOUS OF UNHCR CONVOY LEAVING PRISTINA 0.41 REZALA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 5. LV/GV: WIDE OF VILLAGES BURNING IN DRENICA REGION/ SMOKE BILLOWING FROM HOUSES (4 SHOTS) 1.04 6. GV/LV: KLA REBELS NEAR HOUSE/ LONG VIEW KLA REBELS DIGGING FIGHTING POSITIONS (2 SHOTS) 1.20 7. GV/MV: VARIOUS OF SPECIAL FORCES (CALLED "TIGERS") (2 SHOTS) 1.36 8. CU: SOUNDBITE (Albanian) KLA SPOKESMAN FOR DRENICA REGION GANI KOCE SAYING: "If NATO doesn't keep its promise this time again they will lose their credibility not only for Albanians but with all other peace-loving nations" 1.50 PODUJEVO, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 9. GV: VARIOUS SERBIAN POLICE UNITS DIGGING INTO MORTAR POSITIONS 1.54 10. GV/MV/CU: POLICE UNITS LOADING MORTARS/ POLICE UNITS FIRING NUMEROUS MORTARS (8 SHOTS) 2.40 11. LV: WIDE OF AREA UNDER ATTACK 2.45 KOPILIC, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 1999) (RTN - ACCESS ALL) 12. GV/MV/CU: VARIOUS OF FUNERAL OF MILAZIM REXHA LAID OUT WITH ALBANIAN FLAG/ RELATIVES CRYING AROUND BODY/ BODY BEING BURIED (9 SHOTS) 3.38 13. GV/MV/CU: VARIOUS OF REFUGESS TOO OLD OR SICK TO TRAVEL (9 SHOTS) 4.16 NEAR SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (MARCH 22, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 14. GV/MV/LV: VARIOUS OF HELICOPTER EMBARKATION EXERCISE (6 SHOTS) 5.02 AVIANO, ITALY (MARCH 23, 1999) (RTN - ACCESS ALL) 15. GV/LV: VARIOUS OF NATO EXERCISES/ NATO AIRCRAFT (8 SHOTS) 6.16 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 7th April 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PRISTINA, REZALA, PODUJEVO, KOPILIC, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA/ SKOPJE, MACEDONIA/AVIANO, ITALY
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Italy Macedonia
- Reuters ID: LVABWNUFMITH5W7YKQA9K8YEA5FZ
- Story Text: As a second round of eleventh hour talks between US
envoy Richard Holbrooke and Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic ended on Tuesday, fighting in Kosovo continued.
With Serb shelling of villages across the region
continuing, hundreds of refugees were fleeing the area.
Gun attacks and a bomb blast left Kosovo's capital
Pristina tense on Tuesday (March 23) as the violence that has
convulsed the countryside of Kosovo for a year since ethnic
Albanians rose up against harsh direct rule from Belgrade
began to afflict the provincial capital.
Three people were reported killed and three wounded on
Monday in several shootings and the bombing of a Pristina
cafe, a day after four Serb policemen were shot dead in an
ambush blamed by Belgrade on ethnic Albanian "terrorists".
On Tuesday, a UNHCR convoy of vehicles could be seen
leaving the city.
Fighting resumed around the village of Poljac in Kosovo's
central Drenica region on Tuesday (March 23) as Serb security
forces and separatist ethnic Albanian rebels clashed in the
area for a fourth straight day.
Small-arms and machinegun fire began echoing up the hill
from Poljac to Rezala and heavy artillery shells slammed into
the area just as U.S.Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke sat down
to a second day of crisis talks in Belgrade with Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic.
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas were moving in the
area, taking cover behind haystacks, hedgerows and in ditches.
At least two armoured personnel carriers could be seen
moving around in the distance and smoke and flames rose from
several buildings which had been hit.
A KLA leader in the village warned if NATO did not keep
"their promise, they will lose their credibility not only with
Albanians but all other peace-loving nations."
Serb forces fired 16 rounds of mortar shell into and area
near Podujevo, 30 kilometres north of Pristina, in a bid to
flush out KLA forces which were thought to have surrounded and
trapped a Serb police unit.
The first of an unknown number of ethnic Albanian men
killed at the weekend when Serbs mounted a classic ethnic
cleansing campaign in the central Kosovo town of Srbica was
buried on Tuesday.
Witnesses, including family members, say Milazim Rexha,
26, was shot dead as he ran from Srbica on Saturday after
Serbs wearing white cover-alls and black balaclavas entered
the town and began ordering people from their homes at
gunpoint.
People who fled Srbica told reporters on Saturday they had
seen bodies lying in pools of blood along their route of
escape.Others spoke of summary executions but until Tuesday
there was no evidence to support any of these claims.
The Drenica region, of which Srbica is a part, continues
to see hundreds of refugees moving from their homes.Some of
the refugees have been travelling for two days and are too old
to continue.
With more than 70,000 people having fled Serb tanks and
artillery over the past few weeks, Western officials fear a
humanitarian catastrophe is taking place.
As NATO chiefs met in Belgium to finalise plans for
possible airstrikes against Serb forces, NATO military
exercises continued in Macedonia and Italy.
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