(14 Apr 1999) Serbo-Croat/Nat
Yugoslav authorities are claiming one of NATO's airstrikes has hit a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees, killing at least 64 people and wounding 20.
NATO has confirmed that military vehicles on the same road as the Albanians were targeted in Wednesday's airstrikes.
Military spokesman Jamie Shea has confirmed to APTN that NATO warplanes were aiming for military targets along a road in Kosovo where a refugee convoy was hits by bombs.
However, it is still not certain that a mistake was made.
These were the grim scenes which the Serbian authorities say followed an attack by NATO war planes on a column of refugees inside Kosovo.
The precise location is a road near Meja village, two-point-five kilometres from Djakovica.
The refugees were driving in a column from the villages of Junik and Pacaj towards Djakovica town.
Investigative judge Milenko Momcilovic, at the scene, reported 20 people were killed, and four wounded.
SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat)
"On the fourteenth of April at around 1400 hours the NATO fascists bombed a troop of refugees who tried to escape. Due to this incident there are 19 dead. The house of Sadri Asanaja, who is an Albanian, was hit and four people inside were wounded. Altogether there were 20 dead and four wounded."
SUPER CAPTION: Milenko Momcilovic, Investigative Judge
An Albanian-speaking witness from the refugee column said he heard airplanes and then the big blast.
Witnesses say there have been 5 to 6 detonations.
The aftermath of the alleged airstrike was horrific.
Bodies and smashed cars were scattered along the roadway.
People in rough peasant clothing, some with blood streaming down their faces, loaded bodies of the dead and wounded into trunks of cars or wheelbarrows to transport them.
A young boy sat on a trailer rig, sobbing.
Old men and women wept by the roadside.
UPSOUND (Serbo-Croat)
Reporters voice saying: "Tell me what happened?
Women replies crying: No... no ... no."
Reporter voice asking:"Where are you from?"
Male refugee saying: "I'm from over there. I'm the last gentleman from over there. I heard a gunshot, then an airplane came. I didn't know anything else."
Reporter asks: "Did you hear the planes?"
Man replies;"Yes, I did."
If the reported death toll proves accurate, it would mark by far the largest single loss of civilian life reported during the 3-week-old NATO bombing campaign.
The Serb-run Media Center in the Kosovo capital of Pristina said two separate refugee convoys were bombed, most of them made up of women, children and elderly ethnic Albanians who were being escorted by Serbian police toward the border.
However, the Pentagon says refugees fleeing Kosovo are reporting to relief workers that Yugoslav helicopters and airplanes have been attacking refugee convoys.
The Pentagon said it had "no direct evidence" that an attack on a convoy today, in which 64 civilians were killed, was committed by the Yugoslavs, although NATO has known for some time that Yugoslav warplanes have been attacking Kosovo Liberation Army forces.
And a statement issued by the office of Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Wesley Clark stressed that NATO pilots in the area were certain they attacked only military vehicles.
The statement said : "We cannot confirm press reports alleging that these attacks may have caused civilian casualties but the reported incident will be fully investigated once all mission details have been reviewed".
Whoever is responsible, it is yet again the people of Kosovo who are suffering.
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