April 28, 1999
AIR RAIDS
NATO Bombs Reported to Kill 20 Civilians in Southern Serbia
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By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Serbia -- Belgrade experienced heavy NATO bombing early Wednesday morning, hours after NATO bombs
had killed at least 20 civilians in the
southern Serbian city of Surdulica,
Serbian state television and Western
news agencies said.
In what appears to have been an
accident of war, as many as 300
houses were destroyed, local officials
said. They said that 11 people were
wounded and that 30 were missing in
the attack on Tuesday 200 miles
south of this capital, near the Bulgarian border.
NATO released a statement that
acknowledged that its planes struck
a military target in the city, but did
not directly answer questions about
civilian deaths. "NATO aircraft carried out a successful attack against
an army barracks in Surdulica in
southern Yugoslavia," the statement
said. "NATO does not target civilians, but we cannot exclude harm to
civilians or to civilian property during our air operations over Yugoslavia."
As NATO has intensified its attacks, the numbers of civilian casualties and incidents of misdirected weapons have grown. If the Surdulica figures are confirmed, the strike
would be among the worst cases of
civilian casualties, ranking with the
deaths of Albanian refugees in a column in Kosovo and the bombings of a
passenger train in Grdelica and of a
residential area in Aleksinac.
"One-third of the town was totally
destroyed," a town official, Miroslav
Stojiljkovic, told a reporter from
Reuters Television, whom the Serbian police escorted to the scene. "Between 200 and 300 families have been
left without roofs over their heads."
He said that an army barracks
one and a half miles from the town
had not been hit and that another
barracks 500 yards from the destruction was bombed and ruined on April
6. Another military installation is
four miles away, residents said.
State television quoted local officials as having said they had recovered 20 bodies and feared that others
would be found. The Beta news agency reported that a health center and
water supplies were hit.
A reporter for The Associated
Press, taken to the scene by the
police, saw 50 houses destroyed and
600 damaged. Rescue workers said
11 people, including five children,
were believed trapped in a basement.
A reporter for Serbian state television said 11 missiles hit at midday.
At least five large explosions were
heard from 1 to 2 o'clock Wednesday morning in and around Belgrade.
