YUGOSLAVIA: SERBIAN MEDIA OFFICIALS TAKE JOURNALISTS TO ORAHOVAC, THE SCENE OF FIERCE FIGHTING BETWEEN KLA AND SERBIAN FORCES

Record ID: 639737

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: SERBIAN MEDIA OFFICIALS TAKE JOURNALISTS TO ORAHOVAC, THE SCENE OF FIERCE FIGHTING BETWEEN KLA AND SERBIAN FORCES
  • Date: 22nd July 1998
  • Summary: ORAHOVAC, KOSOVO, SERBIA, YUGOSLAVIA (JULY 22, 1998) (RTV) 1. SLV/SV SERBIAN POLICE SHETERING FROM SUN AT CHECKPOINT ON OUTSKIRTS OF TOWN (3 SHOTS) 0.13 2. LV TOWN 0.18 3. CU ROADSIGN 0.20 4. LV/CU SERBIAN POLICE UNITS IN CONTROL OF TOWN (3 SHOTS) 0.36 5. LV/SL OF BODY ON GROUND DRESSED IN CIVILIAN CLOTHING (2 SHOTS) 0.44 6. SLV/CU POLICE UNITS CONTROLLING TOWN/DEAD HORSE/ DESTROYED CAR 94 SHOTS) 1.02 7. SLV/SV/CU MAN WALKING IN EMPTY STREET/SCATTERED SHOES ON STREET/DAMAGED CAR AND BURNET OUT BUILDINGS (7 SHOTS) 1.30 8. SLV/SV SERBIAN ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER WITH FLAG IN TOWN (2 SHOTS) 1.41 9. SV/LV DESTROYED BUILDING/ PEOPLE WAVING FROM BUILDING (5 SHOTS) 2.00 10. CU BULLET HOLES THROUGH WINDOW OF GROCERY STORE (2 SHOTS) 2.08 11. SV DAMAGED MOSQUE (2 SHOTS) 2.15 12. SV/CU INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS 92 SHOTS) 2.27 13. LV/SV OF TOWN (7 SHOTS) 2.57 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 6th August 1998 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ORAHOVAC, KOSOVO, SERBIA, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVAANE45D9Z0HA9UTQBCD9GVXQPJ
  • Story Text: Serbian media officials have taken journalists to the town of Orahovac, the scene of fierce fighting in recent days between Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) units and Serbian security forces.

    Bodies are lying where they fell in some Kosovo villages hit hardest by the conflict between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanian separatists, a humanitarian aid worker said on Tuesday (July 21).

    Families trapped in partly destroyed settlements are surviving in grim conditions, with no electricity or running water and very little food, according to reports.

    On Tuesday (July 21), the ethnic Albanians' Kosovo Information Centre said at least 34 Albanians had been reported killed in fierce fighting over the past four days in the southwestern town of Orahovac.

    A Reuters Television crew who were allowed into the town on Wednesday reported signs of heavy fighting but no evidence of the sustained tank bombardment ethnic Albanians had claimed the town had been subjected to in recent days.

    Large numbers of heavily armed Serbian police troopers appeared firmly in control of the town, the television crew said.

    Humanitarian aid sources said several thousand Albanian inhabitants of Orahovac and its satellite villages have fled north into KLA-held territory where they have congregated in the now overcrowded village of Maljisevo.

    Serbian forces say they have repulsed a KLA bid to capture the town and are now in full control.

    The Kosovo Information Centre report also said two truckloads of detained Albanians had been taken by Serbian forces from Orahovac to the town of Prizren on Monday night.

    Women and children were freed but men were held.

    Orahovac, where ethnic Albanians made up 80 percent of the peacetime population of 20,000, is 60 km (40 miles) southwest of the regional capital Pristina.

    The death toll in the five-month-old Kosovo conflict is now estimated at over 400, with a further 300 missing.


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