YUGOSLAVIA: Yugoslav army mortar units withdraw from Kosovo in accordance with army's supreme command decision/ Survivors in Korisa give accounts of NATO attack on their village

Record ID: 739290

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: Yugoslav army mortar units withdraw from Kosovo in accordance with army's supreme command decision/ Survivors in Korisa give accounts of NATO attack on their village
  • Date: 16th May 1999
  • Summary: VICINITY OF PRISTINA, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (MAY 16, 1999)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) GENERAL VIEW OF THE YUGOSLAV ARMY MORTAR UNITS POSITION IN THE VICINITY OF PRISTINA MV YUGOSLAV ARMY SOLDIERS PREPARING FOR WITHDRAWAL CU'S YUGOSLAV ARMY SOLDIER CLEANING A PART OF THE MORTAR (2 SHOTS) CU SOUNDBITE (Serbian) MAJOR-GENERAL VLADIMIR LAZAREVIC, COMMANDER OF THE PRISTINA CORPS OF THE YUGOSLAV ARMY SAYING: "In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Command from May 9, we started with the partial withdrawal of troops to their home garrisons. We are moving in small groups due to the intensity of NATO air raids especially on civilian villages and towns." VARIOUS OF THE YUGOSLAV ARMY SOLDIERS LOADING THEIR EQUIPMENT ON TO THE TRUCKS (3 SHOTS) VARIOUS YUGOSLAV ARMY SOLDIERS GETTING ON THE TRUCKS (6 SHOTS) LAS TRUCKS LEAVING PULLING MORTARS BEHIND THE TRUCKS
  • Embargoed: 31st May 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VICINITY OF PRISTINA/ KORISA AND PRIZREN , KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA655IP6FGCVKQH2LV3K8DBIVPN
  • Story Text: Yugoslav Army mortar units have been seen withdrawing from Kosovo in accordance with the decision of the army's Supreme Command.
    And Injured survivors have been telling their story one day after NATO attacked a village of Korisa in south-west Kosovo.
    The withdrawal was filmed by Reuters under Yugoslav government supervision on Sunday (May 16).
    On Monday (May 10), the army's Supreme Command said it had ordered a partial withdrawal of its troops from Kosovo starting from Sunday evening, citing an end of operations against Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebels there.
    The West reacted cautiously to the news, saying it had seen no sign of any immediate pullout and that a partial withdrawal was not enough to fulfil NATO's conditions for an end to its bombing campaign, now into its eighth week.
    "We are moving in small groups due to the intensity of NATO air raids especially on civilian villages and towns," Major-General Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the Pristina Corps of the Yugoslav army said, declining to specify how many troops had left.
    Reuters were allowed by Yugoslav authorites to film the survivors of the Korisa attack on Saturday (May 15).
    At least 100 ethnic Albanians were killed and scores injured when NATO attacked a village in south-west Kosovo during the night, survivors and civil defence officials reported on Friday.
    " All of us were sleeping, when we heard the shots coming from the direction of the main road.It must have been Nato.
    When it fired all of us tried to move.There were 600 people there," said Idriz Aljilji, a survivor.
    It was not immediately clear whether the refugees were trying to escape NATO attacks or the actions of Serb troops and police who were said by refugees crossing into Albania to have forcibly evicted hundreds of ethnic Albanians from their homes in the Prizren area in recent days.
    Around 10 tractor-trailers that brought many of the refugees to the village were still burning.Several of the houses in the village had damage to their roofs.
    The Civil Defence Information Centre for the Kosovo region, based in the provincial capital Pristina, was quoted by the official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug as saying 100 people were killed and some 50 injured in the attack, but added that the toll was expected to rise.
    Korisa is close to a highway leading northeast from Prizren to Suva Reka, one of the areas where NATO has been pressing air attacks on Yugoslav ground forces for the past several days.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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