SKENDERAJ

Srbica/Skenderaj municipality is located in north-central Kosovo, south of Kosovska Mitrovica municipality. The territory of the municipality is mostly a high, rolling plateau running westwards from the foothills of the Cicavica mountains. Prior to the 1998-99 displacements the municipality's population of about 65,000 was 98 per cent Kosovo Albanian.¹ The OSCE-KVM had a Co-ordinating Centre in Srbica village.

Srbica is in the Drenica region, a place with a long history of Kosovo Albanian defiance of Serbian rule,² and has been a heartland of UCK activity from that organization's inception. It includes the villages of Donji Prekaze/Prekazi i Poshtem and Cirez/Qirez, locations (with nearby Likosane/Likoshan, in Glogovac/Gllogoc) of police operations resulting in armed confrontation and the mass killing of civilians in February and March 1998.³ Those events can be said to represent a defining episode in the escalation of armed conflict in Kosovo. Srbica was thereafter badly affected by the Serbian police offensive throughout the summer of 1998. As that offensive unfolded across Drenica there was systematic destruction of many villages by police, forcing thousands of people to flee. Some of the worst atrocities occurred in late September in and near the neighbouring villages of Donje Obrinje/Obri e Ulet (in the far south of Srbica) and Gornje Obrinje/Obri e Eperme (in Glogovac) with three separate mass killings by police reportedly taking place in the space of one day, and numerous other human rights violations.⁴ Despite the summer offensive, at the time of the OSCE-KVM's deployment into Srbica municipality the UCK was still either in control of, or a significant presence in, a substantial part of the municipality.

Yugoslav military "winter exercises" in neighbouring Vucitrn municipality (see the relevant municipality entry) sent many displaced people over the Cicavica mountains into Srbica in late February and March 1999.⁵ On 4 March,the police announced that they had postponed an intended convoy between Srbica and Glogovac.⁶ The UCK had stated that they would not accept a police presence in the territory they controlled, and would attack the convoy if it attempted to pass. UCK reinforcements were observed along the road.⁷ Also as of 4 March 1999, OSCE-KVM confirmed that police special forces were present in Srbica.⁸

On about 18 February, a member of the European Union Attaché Group (EUAG) visited the UCK "military police" station and a "prison" in the Drenica area. They interviewed four Albanian-speaking detainees, arrested for having allegedly committed theft.⁹

Srbica/Skenderaj town

Srbica/Skenderaj town is located in roughly the centre of the municipality, south of the road from Kosovska Mitrovica/Mitrovice to Pec/Peja, on a road leading south to Glogovac. The town's population of about 4,000 was 91 per cent Kosovo Albanian, with some 200 Serb residents.¹⁰

Immediately after the OSCE-KVM withdrew from Kosovo on 20 March, Serb forces who had been stationed at a munitions factory near Gornje Prekaze/Prekazi i Eperme targeted Kosovo Albanians for expulsion from the town. Some reported that the Serb forces were dressed in white winter camouflage uniforms, others reported them as wearing dark uniforms and having painted faces.¹¹ On 21 March they went from house to house, ordering Kosovo Albanians to hand over their valuables and to leave their houses.¹² Some interviewees reported that houses and businesses were targeted for destruction.¹³ One interviewee was at her parent's house when troops in dark blue camouflage with painted faces and black headbands came in. They ordered everybody out, threatening to cut off their ears and make necklaces out of them if they did not comply. When the interviewee reached the street she heard screaming from all around the quarter. She saw a middle-aged Kosovo Albanian man randomly selected by a member of the Serb forces who hit him with the handle of the knife, which left a large bleeding wound on his right cheek. The perpetrator then kicked the man in his genitals and he fell to the ground screaming. The perpetrator took from a colleague an automatic rifle which had a bayonet and moved it quickly down towards the screaming man's chest, possibly stabbing him. After that he shot the man with the automatic rifle, and the interview described the man's body "trembling". The interviewee then fled, eventually to Pristina.¹⁴

Others were rounded up and taken to the local munitions factory.¹⁵ There, men were separated from women. One interviewee was among the men separated and taken to the police station, where they were beaten. They were then transferred in army trucks to the police station in Kosovska Mitrovica. After being beaten again, photographed and fingerprinted, the men were released, albeit their IDs were not returned to them.¹⁶

According to two refugee sisters interviewed separately by the OSCE-KVM, early on the morning of 20 March, shortly after shooting had begun in their neighbourhood, armed men broke in to their house and took the men into the kitchen.¹⁷ From another part of the house the others could hear the sounds of beating and screaming coming from the kitchen. A soldier came upstairs and ordered one 26-year-old woman to take off her clothes, or else be killed. She replied that he could kill her then, and he left when her mother intervened.¹⁸ At least seven men in the household were then reportedly taken outside, one whose name is mentioned in several refugee statements, and another who was an LDK activist and who had worked for the OSCE-KVM.¹⁹ Shortly afterwards one of the two sisters interviewed heard single shots followed by automatic gunfire. Both sisters reported that the bodies of at least two men were found dead in a wooded area nearby and were photographed by police wearing white uniforms, then taken to the Kosovska Mitrovica morgue.²⁰ One of these interviewees viewed the bodies there and retrieved some personal items from the victims. Her brother, one of the men taken away, had been stabbed under his chin and had been shot in the side. Her brother-in-law had been shot in the forehead. Some of the bodies had been mutilated.²¹ The bodies were later buried by their relatives.²² Other killings reportedly took place at this time, although the OSCE-KVM did not interview direct witnesses to these.²³

Since the end of the OSCE-KVM reporting period, international investigators have exhumed 27 bodies from one grave site east of Srbica town.²⁴

On 28 March and again on about 10 April, men rounded up from villages in Srbica municipality including Tusilje/Tushile, Kladernica/Klodernice, and Cirez (see below), were taken to the Srbica police station, where they were held in the station or in nearby buildings, including a warehouse used by the police.²⁵ One interviewee recounted that her cousin, apprehended in Klina (Srbica) on 28 March after fleeing Cirez, had been severely beaten, sustaining broken bones; he was then was taken to Kosovska Mitrovica and released.²⁶ Most others also report that they were questioned about the UCK, beaten, and after their release returned to their home villages.²⁷

From late April and into early May the secondary school in Srbica was used as a detention facility for Kosovo Albanian men.²⁸ About 190 men were taken there on or around 25 April after being separated in Lausa/Llaushe (on the outskirts of Srbica town) from a convoy of IDPs coming from Klina municipality towards Kosovska Mitrovica.²⁹ The men reported that after their arrest, they were not given food for three days, and after that they only received bread in small amounts.³⁰ About another 50 men were transferred to this school from a Kosovska Mitrovica detention centre (see entry for Kosovska Mitrovica municipality) on about 29 April.³¹ They too were not given food for the first 72 hours in detention.³² One prisoner noted that "sometimes [the police] would come in drunk and beat the men in front of the others, kicking them, punching them and beating them with wooden sticks".³³ Other prisoners also mentioned that they were beaten with the butts of rifles.³⁴ One mentioned that the beatings occurred particularly when there were NATO flights over Srbica or when the guards were drunk.³⁵ Two men recognized a local police officer from Kosovska Mitrovica among those who beat them.³⁶

On about 2 May a group of some 60 prisoners at the secondary school was removed by VJ truck to Trnavce/Trnoc, north of Srbica town, where the UCK and the VJ were reportedly fighting.³⁷ One interviewee said he was put between the positions of the belligerent sides, and it was announced that "if one Serb soldier is killed we will kill all the men". They were also made to walk across a field to see if it was mined.³⁸ Another interviewee reported that after being used as human shields they were forced to set fire to Trnavce village.³⁹ They were returned the same day to the secondary school (see also the entry for Kosovska Mitrovica municipality). On about 10 May, the prisoners in the school were transferred to Smrekovnica/Smrekonice prison, for which see the entry for Vucitrn municipality.)

Villages in the Izbica area

The area around Izbica/Izbice village, west of Srbica town, was primarily controlled by the UCK, and almost all the villages in the area were entirely or primarily Kosovo Albanian (only Banja/Baje, in the north, had a Serb majority).⁴⁰ The Serb population of Leocina/Lecine village had fled in 1998, and the disappearance from that village of five members of one Serb family, including two elderly women and an elderly man, remained an issue of continuing concern to local Serbs remaining in the area.⁴¹

In early February 1999, the OSCE-KVM was informed by police that a robbery had occurred at the Serbian Orthodox Devic monastery, near Lausa/Llaushe. When an OSCE-KVM patrol went to the monastery on 5 February, they saw about 40 police with combat equipment and eight armoured vehicles. The police patrol went to Lausa and the OSCE-KVM heard a heavy exchange of small arms fire. Later the vehicles returned to Srbica, where the patrol saw evidence of bullet strikes on two of them. One policeman was slightly hurt. The OSCE-KVM interceded and the police agreed that they would not try to return to the monastery until an agreement had been brokered with the UCK.⁴² When the UCK refused to give the police access, the police threatened to initiate a police action in Lausa village.⁴³

Events in the Izbica area from the period immediately following the OSCE-KVM's withdrawal from Kosovo displaced thousands of people. Judging by statements taken by the OSCE-KVM - and others - among refugees, these IDPs were scattered in clusters all over the Izbica area. There are many accounts of incidents affecting different groups of IDPs.

The wanton destruction of and forcible expulsion from villages in the Izbica area from late March 1999, as well as a mass killing of about 130 men at Izbica village itself, are cited in the indictment against Milosevic and others issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as examples of the means and methods used to carry out a campaign of persecution against Kosovo Albanians. ⁴⁴ The killings at Izbica were among the most widely reported incidents during the conflict. A grave site at Izbica was filmed by satellite and first made public at a NATO press briefing on 17 April 1999.⁴⁵ Information about killings in the Izbica area was spread by the Kosovo and Albanian media, as well as by non-governmental organizations.⁴⁶

As operations began in the Izbica area, many local residents displaced from their homes went to Tusilje/Tushile, an isolated village set back from the road, because they felt they would be safe in this remote location. However, on about 28 March thousands of IDPs were rounded up in Tusilje. Men were separated and forced to march to Srbica town, where they were detained in a warehouse and other buildings used by the police.⁴⁷

Immediately after the OSCE-KVM left on 20 March, police in white snow uniforms entered Vocnjak/Vojnike village, to the south of Izbica, breaking windows and telling the inhabitants to get out.⁴⁸ When they came to one house of one interviewee, they ordered the men, who were holding the children, to give them to the women and ordered the women to get out of the house, beating them when they insisted on staying. The interviewee heard shooting, and when she returned to the house two hours later, found two of her male relatives shot dead. She described the backs of their heads as having been completely blown off. The women then fled to the mountains and eventually went to Izbica.⁴⁹

Attacks on the villages in the Izbica area intensified after 24 March. As Yugoslav forces shelled villages including Vocnjak, Kladernica/Klodernice, and Leocina/Lecine, many of the civilian inhabitants fled to safer areas.⁵⁰ Kladernica was torched, and VJ fired towards a group of IDPs in the hills, killing three.⁵¹ Some of the men of military age fled to the hills; UCK fighters may have been among them.⁵² Others, however, were camped with their families and tractors loaded with belongings. Clusters of IDPs were also gathered to the east in Turicevac/Turiceve and at Izbica. One interviewee who was near Brocna/Buroje reported that when he and two other men went to the village to look for food, they failed to notice a police checkpoint and his two companions were shot dead.⁵³

On 27 March, Kladernica and a nearby forested hilltop where many IDPs were hiding were surrounded by Serb forces in blue and green camouflage, some of whom were wearing black masks and gloves.⁵⁴ One villager brought out a white flag, but then police in green camouflage separated him from his family. Although the family offered money for his release, he was shot dead.⁵⁵ Other individuals were also killed in Kladernica at this time.⁵⁶ One interviewee's report corroborates other organizations' accounts that after their valuables had been confiscated, about 30 men were separated from a group of IDPs and were executed.⁵⁷ The Serb forces also set ablaze the tractors loaded with the IDPs; two interviewees recounted that one elderly and paralysed man was not able to get out of the tractor and died.⁵⁸ Afterwards, the soldiers departed. The IDPs were unable to return to the village for several days, however, because of continuing fighting in the area.⁵⁹ The next day, similar events were reported to have occurred at Vocnjak after police and VJ entered the village with armoured vehicles and tanks.⁶⁰ Villagers there also reported that tractors were set on fire and some people, including elderly, who were not able to get off the tractors in time were burned.⁶¹ Others were reportedly executed at this time.⁶² The villagers were then escorted out of the village.

By 28 March thousands of displaced people from villages in the Drenica region had collected in Izbica/Izbice. Serb forces in green camouflage collected villagers and IDPs who were sheltering in the hills and brought them to a field. ⁶³ About 150 men were separated from this group, including one interviewee's 12-year-old son, who was only released after the villagers gave money for him.⁶⁴ The women, elderly and children were then told to walk towards Djakovica/Gjakova. As they were walking away some said they heard shooting.⁶⁵ One 23-year-old man was among the villagers, and when the separating began he asked his father what they should do. His father said "Run!" and the interviewee fled into the forest. He later heard shooting. Several days later, he was among men who came down from the hills and discovered the bodies of the men who had been separated; he identified his father among those who had been killed.⁶⁶ Interviewees describe the bodies of the men as lying in two or three groups.⁶⁷ They also found the bodies of some women and others who had been killed with knives; some said the bodies were mutilated.⁶⁸

Many of the men who had been in the hills assisted in the identification and burial of the victims.⁶⁹ They identified and buried not only those killed in Izbica, but also in other villages in the area; the bodies of some of them were brought to Izbica and buried at the same grave site.⁷⁰ The burial was videotaped by a Kosovo Albanian who was later able to smuggle the videotape out of Kosovo.⁷¹

Displaced people, including those separated and expelled from Izbica, were near Turicevac when a shell fell into the column of refugees on or around 28 March. Several people were killed, including two girls (names given). In the chaos some families were separated. After the shelling, the convoy was broken apart; some went to Tusilje/Tushile and others went on towards Klina, but were eventually able to return to their homes or to locations where IDPs had taken shelter in the Izbica area, many in Kladernica. ⁷² At another point, possibly near Brocna, the IDPs were stopped near a river, where they were told to sit down. Serb forces threatened to run over them with a tank if they did not hand over money and valuables.⁷³

On about 10 April Serb forces again entered Kladernica. One family was in a school together with hundreds of other IDPs when soldiers came in and separated the men from the women. They took valuables from the women, and released older men on payment of a ransom. Those released were expelled from the area, and many joined a large column of IDPs that went towards Klina and Djakovica and eventually to Albania. Younger men were kept behind and were taken to Srbica town, and beaten the entire time before being reportedly released one week later. ⁷⁴ One interviewee who said that he was arrested at this time, but in Izbica, said that men were separated and taken to Srbica, where they were severely beaten.⁷⁵ His group was held for one day and then transferred to Turicevac. They were held there for two days before being expelled towards Djakovica.⁷⁶ Another interviewee said that on 19 April he was in a group of IDPs in the woods near Vocnjak when Serb forces surrounded them. Men were beaten and money and valuables were extorted. The interviewee was then arrested with other men and taken to Tutine (in the Sandjak region of Serbia proper), where they were held for one day in a school, interrogated and ill-treated, and then on 20 April transported to the Albanian border crossing near Shkoder.⁷⁷

In the early hours of 12 May, shelling began again in the Izbica area. Serb forces came into Kladernica and gathered together the Kosovo Albanians they found there; some of the men, including one interviewee and his male relatives, were beaten before being expelled towards Albania. A group of young men were also reportedly killed at this time.⁷⁸ In Vocnjak and Izbica village Kosovo Albanians were also rounded up and expelled at this time. Those expelled from the area were sent towards Djakovica and then on towards Albania; some were detained overnight in a brick factory near Landovica/Landovice (see the entry for Prizren municipality), and the following day were bussed to the border with Albania.⁷⁹

Since the end of the reporting period of the OSCE-KVM, international investigators in Kosovo have examined sites in Izbica and Brocna/Buroje where execution victims were reportedly buried.⁸⁰ In Izbica, the Serbian forces had tampered with the grave site. Villagers report that between 29 May and 5 June (thus, after information about the grave site had been made public), Serbian forces with excavators came and removed the bodies, taking them to an unknown location. They reported that when the site itself was exhumed by international investigators, only clothing and some body parts were found. Villagers, desperate for a place to mourn the dead, had replaced the markers on the empty graves.⁸¹

Villages in the Marina-Makrmalj area, south of Srbica town

The area south of Srbica, west of the main road from Srbica to Glogovac, had been the scene of fierce fighting in 1998. Many villages, including Marina/Morine, Rezala/Rezalle, Makrmalj/Makermal, Likovac/Likofc, Tica/Tice, Pluzina/Plluzhine, Ovcarevo/Acareve, Donje Obrinje/Obri e Ulet, and Murga/Murge had been destroyed, and as a result there were very few civilians living there. Marina, where there is an airfield, was reportedly used as a base for VJ conducting activities in the Drenica region.⁸²

On 13 January 1999 OSCE-KVM intervention led to the release of eight VJ soldiers from Kosovska Mitrovica who had been taken captive by the UCK and detained in Likovac/Likofc. While talks were ongoing concerning the release of the soldiers, four Serb journalists who were trying to cover the story were threatened at gunpoint and told to leave the area; the OSCE-KVM intervened to prevent the UCK from taking them captive, and escorted them as they left the area.⁸³

In another abduction episode at Likovac, a Kosovo Albanian working for the Vucitrn municipal authorities went missing after he had been detained by the UCK and taken to Likovac on 17 December 1998. Although his relatives visited him there once on 20 December, when they attempted to visit him on 31 January 1999 they were told that he had been released the previous day. The man failed to return home. Although the UCK admitted to the OSCE-KVM that they had arrested this man, the Drenica zone commander informed the OSCE-KVM on 8 March that he was not in detention in Drenica, but failed to provide information on when he was transferred or released from their custody. The man remained missing at the time of the OSCE-KVM withdrawal.⁸⁴

Very few refugees from villages in the Marina and Makrmalj area were interviewed by the OSCE-KVM. One interviewee reported that she was repeatedly harassed in Makrmalj/Makermal, a village adjacent to Marina/Morine. On 18 April her husband warned her that suspicious forces were heading in their direction; he said that they were wearing UCK uniforms but had long hair. The interviewee was shot in the leg. Three days later, the interviewee was molested by soldiers she described as "paramilitaries", who wore earrings, one also with a beard, another with a scarf on his head. They came to her house and made lewd gestures, and one started to unzip his trousers. He then left after demanding gold from the women in the room. Two days later, police came into the house and took the men of the house into the yard where they beat them. The men were then taken away by the police but were released the next night. They recounted that they had been taken to a factory where the humiliating treatment they had been subjected to had included having to immerse themselves in latrines.⁸⁵

Villages in the Marina-Makrmalj area where VJ were based were used as detention centres for men rounded up from the Srbica and Glogovac area; they were reportedly forced to undertake dangerous work such as digging trenches and building bunkers for the forces.⁸⁶ Although none had first-hand knowledge, interviewees reported killings in Rezala village.⁸⁷ International investigators in Kosovo have examined sites in Marina where bodies were reportedly buried.⁸⁸

On 12 May, an interviewee reported seeing Serb forces in black uniforms with red armbands and camouflage vests come into Donje Obrinje/Obri e Ulet village and shoot dead four men, then mutilate the bodies.⁸⁹

Villages in the Cirez/Qirez area

Cirez/Qirez is a village in the high, hilly plains approaching the Cicavica mountains bordering Glogovac municipality, approximately 10 km north of Glogovac and approximately 12 km south-east of Srbica town. The village is spread over several kilometres along a minor road leading from Glogovac to Vucitrn. Cirez is a focal village for several nearby villages, including Baks/Baks, Krasalic/Krasaliq, Kozica/Kozhice and Krasmirovac/Krasmiroc, as well as Likosane/Likoshan and Stutica/Shtutice (Glogovac municipality), and Becic/Beqiq and Bencuk/Bequk (Vucitrn municipality). The area has few natural boundaries distinguishing the municipality boundaries. For the duration of the time OSCE-KVM was in Kosovo, this area was controlled by the UCK.

As noted above, Cirez was one of the locations of the well-documented extra-judicial execution of civilians by Serbian police on 28 February and 1 March 1998.

Cirez was visited in December 1998 by OSCE-KVM monitors who were attempting to mediate between the local electric company and the UCK over access by the electrical company to the area in order to maintain high voltage transmission lines which ran through the area. The UCK had been denying access, setting the condition that low voltage lines be repaired to provide electricity to local (Kosovo Albanian) villages, and insisting that the work be done by crews composed solely of Kosovo Albanians. Although an agreement had been reached whereby power would be delivered to the area, the UCK liaison also complained that it was only for two or three hours a day to the villagers at this time.⁹⁰

On 10 March 1999, UNHCR reported that 200 IDPs, primarily women and children, had arrived in Krasmirovac/Krasmiroc.⁹¹ On 17 March the OSCE-KVM observed IDPs on the move in the Cirez and Prelovac/Prelovc area.⁹² Some people interviewed by the OSCE-KVM after fleeing or being expelled to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or to Albania reported that VJ troops had established themselves in Prelovac village, near Krasalic, by 16 March; however, this was not confirmed by the OSCE-KVM.⁹³

The "winter exercises" centred on Vucitrn municipality (see the relevant municipality entry, and also above) meant that significant numbers of VJ troops were out of barracks and in the Cirez area at the time of the OSCE-KVM's departure. Immediately after the OSCE-KVM left Kosovo, villages surrounding Cirez were shelled, including Baks, Krasmirovac, Kozica and Krasalic, as well as villages in the north of Glogovac. Thousands of villagers, expelled or fleeing from shelling, came to Cirez and were gathered near the mosque and school there.⁹⁴ On 23 March the VJ, with tanks, came to Cirez from the direction of Srbica town.⁹⁵ They shot into the air and came to the school, where thousands of IDPs were sheltering.⁹⁶ Serb forces, including the VJ but also others, came into the school and separated out the men. As the men were taken into the yard, women inside the school were searched and valuables were confiscated. The men were ordered to take off their trousers and lie in the snow, and were beaten for about an hour before being released.⁹⁷ Other groups described as "paramilitaries", with long hair, earrings and a mixture of uniforms, searched private houses, expelling the residents and setting their homes on fire. The Serb forces ordered those who had come from villages in Srbica municipality to return to their homes, but the other IDPs were confined to the school for several days.⁹⁸

On 25 March a different group of Serbian police in mixed blue camouflage accompanied by soldiers in green camouflage driving tanks arrived in Cirez from the direction of Glogovac.⁹⁹ At this time, the remaining inhabitants of Cirez were ordered to go to the school and mosque. The police then entered the school and ordered everyone to get out. Males over the age of 10 were separated, and forced to shout pro-Serbian slogans. The police insulted the elderly men, throwing their skullcaps (plis) to the ground and trampling on them.¹⁰⁰ They set fire to houses and to tractors loaded with the IDPs' belongings.¹⁰¹ The Kosovo Albanians were then ordered on a five-hour march along back roads to Stutica via Likosane.¹⁰² They were told that they were being used as human shields, and were accompanied by military vehicles.¹⁰³ One interviewee recounted that the column was led by the men, who were forced to walk with hands behind their heads and were followed by the women and children.¹⁰⁴ During the trek about 20 men were forced to line up and lie on the ground; one who tried to escape was shot dead.¹⁰⁵ Some interviewees,however, reported that the soldiers in the tanks took pity at the sight of these hungry and exhausted people and gave them food and water.¹⁰⁶ Nevertheless, one woman reported that her baby had died from the hardship.¹⁰⁷

In Stutica (Glogovac), the IDPs were again searched for valuables, and about 100 men were ordered outside, where they were kept for the entire night and beaten. On 27 March, these IDPs were again separated. About 200 men were reportedly forced to accompany tanks to Glogovac.¹⁰⁸ The other interviewees were released, although some were ordered back to Srbica municipality, to Kozica, Krasmirovac, and Krasalic.¹⁰⁹ Many again ended up in Cirez.¹¹⁰ After their return, villagers were able to stay for about one or two weeks, although many reported incidents of harassment and some reported killings.¹¹¹ Sometime before mid-April most of the population was expelled from the area, most heading towards Glogovac town or villages near there.¹¹² (Some of the key incidents in villages in this part of Srbica municipality at the time of these expulsions are described below; incidents in villages in Glogovac municipality are described in that municipality's entry.)¹¹³

Villagers who had returned to Baks village were only there for a couple of days before several groups of Serb forces again entered the town, coming from the north. One group, described as wearing cowboy hats, entered a yard where a group of about 300 people had put out a white cloth to indicate their surrender. The Serbs separated three men, and beat them in front of the others. Another interviewee described how another group of Serbs with long hair and wearing green baseball caps came and, after giving themselves injections, went into a house and took out an elderly woman; they then set the house on fire. While it was burning, they shot dead the three men who had been beaten and the elderly woman. The other villagers were then forced to enter the mosque, which had also been set on fire, and were forced to stay there for half an hour until they were choking from the smoke.¹¹⁴

When expelled from Baks to Glogovac around the same time, one interviewee said her father-in-law was taken away by Serb forces with three other elderly men.¹¹⁵ Another apparently unrelated interviewee whose route out of Kosovo was different said that she had seen that man among five others who were shot dead.¹¹⁶

More than 1,000 IDPs had gathered in Krasmirovac. In early April the village was shelled, and afterwards mixed groups of Serb forces entered. Villagers had gathered in a field. Four elderly men were separated from the group and shot dead; one of the perpetrators was described as having exceptionally long hair.¹¹⁷ A teenage girl was also shot dead.¹¹⁸ The group was then robbed of their valuables and expelled towards Cirez and on to Glogovac.

One interviewee said that a second attack on Kozica village began on 6 April 1999 (the first had been on 20 March). During this second attack a shell fell on a house, killing three people inside. One member of the Serb forces, who was described as bald and wearing a cowboy hat, took a mentally retarded man from the crowd and shot him dead. All the women and elderly people were taken into a yard, but one interviewee who was confined to a wheelchair was left behind. She asked one VJ, whom the others called "Kapetan" to fetch her mother and sister, which he did. Although the disabled woman's sisters were eventually expelled, the soldier then arranged transport to Cirez for her and for the elderly and wounded. There, they were cared for and protected from other Serb forces by VJ soldiers for about one week, before the soldiers took them to Krasalic, saying that it was for their own safety as "many shit people have got hold of arms now".¹¹⁹

In the first part of April, women were kept in the Cirez mosque by a group of Serb forces described as being tall and bald.¹²⁰ They forced the women to strip, and the women were then paraded in front of many other soldiers who groped them. Some women may have been raped at this time. Three women were reportedly raped daily for three days and then expelled to Staro Cikatovo (Glogovac), where they met other rape victims (see also the Glogovac municipality entry).¹²¹

After this wave of expulsions, the population remaining in the area was predominantly men who had fled into the hills, including those who went to join the UCK.¹²² During this time, killings continued, for example one interviewee reported that four men who attempted to return to their home village from Krasmirovac were shot dead when spotted by Serb forces.¹²³ One man said that he was taken, along with 175 other men, from the Cirez mosque to Glogovac police station, to be transferred eventually to Lipljan prison.¹²⁴

After NATO bombed the Feronikel factory in Glogovac (see Glogovac municipality entry), increased military activities in the entire area increased. More than 250 people were reported as being killed in Stutica and Vrbovac (see entry in Glogovac municipality). The OSCE-KVM did not interview anyone who had remained in the Cirez area at this time.