End deliberate attacks on Serb civilians
News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International
Email address: mailto:ai-news@amnesty.org Website: http://www.amnesty.org
16 February 2001 EUR 70/003/2001 29/01
Amnesty International today condemned this morning's unprovoked attack on a convoy of buses travelling north of
Podujevo in northern Kosovo near the border with Serbia proper, thought to have been carried out by armed ethnic
Albanians. The buses - under a heavy escort of Swedish Kosovo Force (KFOR) troops - were carrying Serb civilians from
the town of Strpce in southern Kosovo to Serbia.
Latest reports suggest that seven people have been killed and at least 35 have been injured, at least ten of them
seriously, when the lead bus was attacked. A spokesperson for KFOR reported that the explosion - probably a mine - was
automatically triggered, and completely destroyed the first bus in the convoy.
"From the reports we have received, it appears that this attack on unarmed Serb civilians was clearly well planned and
was deliberately aimed to cause injury and death," a spokesperson for Amnesty International said today. "AI condemns
such deliberate, arbitrary and unlawful killings."
The human rights organization calls on the United Nations interim Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK) to ensure that those
responsible are apprehended and brought to justice.
The convoy of seven buses - known as the Ni? express - was carrying an estimated 200 Serb passengers. Buses carrying
Serb civilians are regularly escorted through Kosovo by KFOR to enable the Serb minority to go shopping and to visit
relatives in Serbia.
Though no group has claimed responsibility for this morning's attack, a machine-gun attack on Tuesday on another bus
carrying Serb civilians on the Urosevac-Strpce road which resulted in the death of one man and the injury of three
people earlier this week has been attributed by UNMIK to armed ethnic Albanians. Five suspects have been arrested in
connection with that incident. Tensions have been high in Strpce since Tuesday. Additional KFOR troops were brought in
on Wednesday to calm the situation after a group of around 1000 local Serb residents attacked the UNMIK building and UN
vehicles on Tuesday evening.
Background
Members of the Serb community have increasingly come under attack both in Kosovo and in southern Serbia since the
escalation of tension in the region last November. This followed the seizure of the five kilometre-wide Ground Safety
zone (established under the Kumanovo Military-Technical Agreement of June 1999) between Kosovo and Serbia proper by the
armed ethnic-Albanian opposition group, the Liberation Army of Pre?evo, Medvedje and Bujanovac (UÇPMB). The area has
since been intensively policed by KFOR troops. A peace plan proposed by the governments of Serbia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia has recently been rejected by civilian representatives of the ethnic Albanian community in the
region, and by the UÇPMB, who want the three municipalities to be part of Kosovo, rather than Serbia.
ENDS