(28 Jul 1999) Serbo-Croat/Nat

The bodies of the fourteen Serb farmers killed in the Kosovan village of Gracko late last week were released to their families on Wednesday morning.

Villagers have been waiting to finalise funeral arrangements for the men who are thought to have been victims of retaliation by Kosovo's returning Albanian population.

Hundreds of people are expected to attend today's mass funeral service at a sports' field in the farmers' home village.

Preparations were continuing on Wednesday for the funerals of the fourteen Serb men killed last week in the village Gracko in Kosovo last week.

Officials at Pristina's hospital released the bodies to family members on Wednesday.

The release had been delayed after doctors retained the bodies to perform autopsies.

As soldiers from K-FOR, the NATO implementation force, looked on family members arrived at the hospital to claim the remains of their loved ones.

One by one bodies were carried from the hospital to be loaded onto trucks for the fifteen mile journey to Gracko.

The killings last Friday were the largest demonstration of violence since NATO entered the province.

Attacks have included almost 200 killings, hundreds of house burnings and other unrest,
mostly in revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians against the Serb minority.

Serb and Yugoslav forces killed an estimated 10-thousand people and forced almost 900-thousand out of Kosovo before and during the NATO air campaign, which began on March 24.

In Gracko itself, the villagers began preparing early for a funeral which hundreds are expected to attend.

Leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church, including Patriarch Pavle, traveled to Kosovo ahead of the ceremony to mourn the victims and show solidarity for the minority Serbs in the province.

The bodies are to be buried in the local cemetery, which Serbs from other Kosovo villages helped to prepare for the ceremony.

As the preparations continued a team of one hundred British K-FOR soldiers patrolled the village, while military engineers combed the streets in search of explosives.

One man, who would not show his face for fear of retaliation, lost four relatives in the attack.

Despite statements to the contrary from K-FOR, this man claimed that the bodies of the dead men were mutilated.

SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat)
"They massacred them. They took their eyes out. They don't have hands or arms. But that wasn't enough for them, they drove over the bodies with tractors."
SUPER CAPTION: Mr. Janicigevec

Since NATO's bombing campaign in the Balkans ended, more than 100-thousand Serbs are believed to have fled the province out of fear for their safety, leaving fewer than half as many behind.

Many have little faith in assurances from K-FOR commanders that the force will protect them as well as ethnic Albanians.

As Serbs fled Kosovo, more than 720-thousand ethnic Albanian refugees have returned to the homes they left during the yearlong crackdown launched by Serb security forces in the province.

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