YUGOSLAVIA: At least 18 are killed after NATO missiles intended for military targets miss and destroy homes in Surdulica

Record ID: 783166

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: At least 18 are killed after NATO missiles intended for military targets miss and destroy homes in Surdulica
  • Date: 27th April 1999
  • Summary: PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO (APRIL 28, 1999) (REUTERS(A)) WIDE OF CITY WITH SMOKE COMING FROM EXPLOSIONS ON HILLSIDE (4 SHOTS) VARIOUS PEOPLE WATCHING FROM STREET/ SOLDIERS (6 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 12th May 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SURDULICA, SERBIA, YUGOSLAVIA/PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAD85IO0FMNY8S6KF0E24M5RXRL
  • Story Text: A NATO air attack on the town of Surdulica in southeast Serbia appears to have gone badly wrong, destroying homes and killing at least 16 people, mostly children.
    NATO missiles have hit ordinary homes in Surdulica town in southeast Serbia on Tuesday (April 27).According to locals 16 missiles rained down for 25 minutes around mid-day.
    Officials in Surdulica, southeast Serbia, said they had pulled 20 bodies from the ruins of houses flattened by a NATO raid on Tuesday.Sixteen corpses were laid out in the local morgue as angry residents denounced NATO with chants of "Fascists!"
    NATO said a laser-guided bomb had gone astray and hit a residential area during an attack on an army training centre.
    In Surdulica, a huge crater was all that remained of one house, where locals said 16 people, mainly children and the elderly, had been sheltering in a basement when two NATO missiles hit.
    The roofs were damaged on surrounding buildings and all their windows had shattered.
    Rescue workers combed the ruins, lit overnight with a spotlight -- the only illumination in the little town apart from the hospital.Officials said phone lines and water were also cut.
    According to one eyewitness twenty-five percent of the town was destroyed, including civilian and workers quarters.
    The witness said, "Surdulica has around 14,000 citizens and the municipality has around 30,000.Around 600 houses are destroyed, the whole quarter".
    At the local hospital, the wounded were being treated for a variety of injuries.One woman said she was in the basement of her house when a bomb hit and had to be pulled from the rubble.
    Reporters were shown two areas where there was widespread damage.A doctor at the hospital said 11 people had been injured, two of them seriously.
    A NATO spokesman in Brussels said there had been a successful strike on a nearby barracks, but declined to rule out that civilians might also have been killed by accident.
    "We take every possible precaution to prevent harm to civilians but unfortunately we cannot completely exclude the possibility of harm to civilians or to civilian property during a conflict such as this one," he said.
    Another resident of Surdulica said the army barracks had already been destroyed in a previous air strike.
    In Montenegro, on Wednesday, aircraft were heard flying over the capital of Podgorica around lunch time.
    Shortly afterwards three explosions were heard, one in the area of the Shipodnik military airport.The other two appeared to come from Golubovci airport and one from south of the capital.Plumes of smoke were seen rising from the nearby hills.
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