Civilian casualties during Operation Allied Force
Encyclopedia
Civilian casualties as a result of Operation Allied Force
were significant. Many of the people killed in the NATO airstrikes were widely reported to be civilians, both Serbs
and Albanians
. Human Rights Watch
confirmed ninety incidents in which civilians died as a result of NATO bombing. It reported that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the ninety separate incidents in Operation Allied Force. According to Yugoslav Committee for Cooperation with UNICEF, the Yugoslav civilian victims are more than 1,200.
According to military historian Michael Oren
, for every Serbian soldier killed by NATO in 1999, four civilians died, constituting a civilian casualty ratio
of 4:1.
The 13th night of air strikes included the first major NATO mistake when an attack on a barracks on the southern mining town of Aleksinac
resulted in missiles striking a residential area. Serb TV reported at least five dead and at least another 30 injured when the three missiles fell 600 m short of their target. The missiles struck apartments, an "emergency centre" and a medical dispensary, TV reports said. Commenting on the incident, Air Commodore David Wilby of Nato said "It is possible that one of our weapons fell short of the target.
-Thessaloniki
train had been crossing the bridge near Leskovac
, southern Serbia as the air-launched missile released several miles away reached its target.
in western Kosovo, killing seventy-three civilians and injuring thirty-six others Human rights could document. The attack began at 1:30 p.m. and persisted for about two hours, causing civilian deaths in numerous locations on the convoy route near the villages of Bistrazin, Gradis, Madanaj, and Meja.
Dragoljub Milanovic was the director general of Serbian Radio and Television and belonged to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia.
He was found guilty and jailed for 10 years for intentional withholding information from his employees about the eventual bombing, which had a direct effect on the number of dead. The justification was media points from the west.
. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/329976.stm
bridge north of Priština
hit a passenger bus.
aimed at an airfield in the Yugoslav city of Niš
hit a hospital and a market, killing 14 civilians. Local officials said that a further 60 people were injured in the daylight attack which left unexploded cluster bombs lying in gardens.
in Belgrade
, killing three Chinese diplomats and injuring 20 others. CIA director George Tenet
later admitted in congressional testimony that the CIA had organised the strike and that it was the only strike of the campaign organised by his agency, though he still claimed it was accidental. China has never accepted the US explanation for the incident.
Parts of the Dragiša Mišović hospital, near a barracks in the Dedinje
district, were reduced to rubble. NATO admitted a missile aimed at an army barracks in the Dedinje district, which is close to the hospital, went astray.
, south-central Serbia. Yugoslav sources said local people were attending the town's market when the attack happened at 1pm local time. Witnesses said four cars fell into the Velika Morava
river. Rescuers who went to aid of the injured were hit in the second attack.
A first-hand account of what happened was published in the Irish Times. One of their reporters visited the village shortly after the bombing. Photos of the "military target" and the civilian casualties are available at http://www.nato-tribunal.de/varvarin/photo_documentation.htm.
Nato spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance had bombed a "legitimate designated military target".
, southwest Serbia.
that might be there," General Shelton said on April 14: "Then every precaution is made...so that collateral damage is avoided." According to Lt. Gen. Michael Short, "collateral damage drove us to an extraordinary degree. General Clark committed hours of his day dealing with the allies on issues of collateral damage."
Then-NATO spokesman Jamie Shea
said "There is always a cost to defeat an evil," he said. "It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher." He insisted NATO planes had bombed only "legitimate designated military targets" and if more civilians had died it was because NATO had been forced into military action.
Operation Allied Force
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...
were significant. Many of the people killed in the NATO airstrikes were widely reported to be civilians, both Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
and Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
. Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
confirmed ninety incidents in which civilians died as a result of NATO bombing. It reported that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the ninety separate incidents in Operation Allied Force. According to Yugoslav Committee for Cooperation with UNICEF, the Yugoslav civilian victims are more than 1,200.
According to military historian Michael Oren
Michael Oren
Michael B. Oren is an American-born Israeli historian and author and the Israeli ambassador to the United States...
, for every Serbian soldier killed by NATO in 1999, four civilians died, constituting a civilian casualty ratio
Civilian casualty ratio
In armed conflicts, the civilian casualty ratio is the ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties, or total casualties...
of 4:1.
April 5, 1999: Bombing of Aleksinac
Aleksinac
Aleksinac is a town which is a center of Aleksinac Municipality, located in the Nišava District of Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a population of 16,420 inhabitants, while the municipality has 51,462.-Name:...
resulted in missiles striking a residential area. Serb TV reported at least five dead and at least another 30 injured when the three missiles fell 600 m short of their target. The missiles struck apartments, an "emergency centre" and a medical dispensary, TV reports said. Commenting on the incident, Air Commodore David Wilby of Nato said "It is possible that one of our weapons fell short of the target.
April 12, 1999: Grdelica train bombing
NATO's attack on a railway bridge hit a passenger train, killing 14 and leaving 16 injured. The BelgradeBelgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
-Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
train had been crossing the bridge near Leskovac
Leskovac
Leskovac is a city and municipality in southern Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Jablanica District of Serbia...
, southern Serbia as the air-launched missile released several miles away reached its target.
April 14, 1999: Bombing of a refugee column
On April 14, during daylight hours, NATO aircraft repeatedly bombed Albanian refugee movements over a twelve-mile (19 km) stretch of road between Đakovica and DečaniDecani
Decani is the side of a church choir occupied by the Dean. In English churches this is typically the choir stalls on the south side of the chancel, although there are some notable exceptions, such as Durham Cathedral and Southwell Minster...
in western Kosovo, killing seventy-three civilians and injuring thirty-six others Human rights could document. The attack began at 1:30 p.m. and persisted for about two hours, causing civilian deaths in numerous locations on the convoy route near the villages of Bistrazin, Gradis, Madanaj, and Meja.
April 23, 1999: Serb Radio and Television headquarters bombing
One of the largest incidents of civilian deaths, and certainly the largest in Belgrade, was the bombing of state Serbian Radio and Television (RTS) headquarters in Belgrade on April 23. As a consequence, sixteen RTS civilian technicians and workers were killed and sixteen were wounded.Dragoljub Milanovic was the director general of Serbian Radio and Television and belonged to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia.
He was found guilty and jailed for 10 years for intentional withholding information from his employees about the eventual bombing, which had a direct effect on the number of dead. The justification was media points from the west.
April 27, 1999: First Bombing of Surdulica
At least 16 civilians were killed after two NATO missiles hit a residential area in the southern town of SurdulicaSurdulica
Surdulica is a town and municipality situated in the southeast of Serbia . In 2011, the population of the town is 10,915, while population of the municipality is 20,265.-Geography:...
. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/329976.stm
May 1, 1999: Bombing of a civilian bus
At least 23 people died when a NATO missile aimed at the LužaneLužane
Lužane is a village in the municipality of Aleksinac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the village has a population of 942 people.-References:...
bridge north of Priština
Pristina
Pristina, also spelled Prishtina and Priština is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous municipality and district....
hit a passenger bus.
May 7, 1999: Cluster bombing of Niš
NATO confirmed that a cluster bombCluster bomb
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller sub-munitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill enemy personnel and destroy vehicles...
aimed at an airfield in the Yugoslav city of Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
hit a hospital and a market, killing 14 civilians. Local officials said that a further 60 people were injured in the daylight attack which left unexploded cluster bombs lying in gardens.
May 7, 1999: Chinese embassy bombing
A salvo of US JDAM GPS-guided bombs struck the embassy of the People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, killing three Chinese diplomats and injuring 20 others. CIA director George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
later admitted in congressional testimony that the CIA had organised the strike and that it was the only strike of the campaign organised by his agency, though he still claimed it was accidental. China has never accepted the US explanation for the incident.
May 14, 1999: Bombing of Koriša
At least 100 civilians died after NATO bombed what it said were "legitimate military targets" in the village of Korisa, southern Kosovo. Footage broadcast by Serbian TV showed charred remains, including at least two children, smouldering homes and burning tractors.May 19, 1999: Belgrade hospital strike
A NATO bombing attack led to the deaths of at least three patients in a Belgrade hospital.Parts of the Dragiša Mišović hospital, near a barracks in the Dedinje
Dedinje
Dedinje is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Savski Venac...
district, were reduced to rubble. NATO admitted a missile aimed at an army barracks in the Dedinje district, which is close to the hospital, went astray.
May 30, 1999: Bombing of Varvarin
11 civilians were reported killed and a further 40 injured when NATO bombers mounted a daylight raid on a bridge in VarvarinVarvarin
Varvarin is a small town and municipality in the Šumadija region of central Serbia. Population of the town is 2,133, and population of the municipality is 17,772. It is part of the Rasina District of Serbia.-Features:...
, south-central Serbia. Yugoslav sources said local people were attending the town's market when the attack happened at 1pm local time. Witnesses said four cars fell into the Velika Morava
Velika Morava
The Great Morava is the final section of the Morava , a major river system in Serbia.- Length :...
river. Rescuers who went to aid of the injured were hit in the second attack.
A first-hand account of what happened was published in the Irish Times. One of their reporters visited the village shortly after the bombing. Photos of the "military target" and the civilian casualties are available at http://www.nato-tribunal.de/varvarin/photo_documentation.htm.
Nato spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance had bombed a "legitimate designated military target".
May 30, 1999: Second Bombing of Surdulica
NATO planes hit an old peoples' home at a sanatorium in south-eastern Serbia killing at least 11 people.May 31, 1999: Bombing of Novi Pazar
At least 10 people were killed and 20 injured in a NATO missile attack on an apartment building in Novi PazarNovi Pazar
Novi Pazar is a city and municipality located in southwest Serbia, in the Raška District. According to the official census in 2011, number of inhabitants of municipality is 92,776, while the city itself has a population of 60,638...
, southwest Serbia.
NATO strategy and claims
From the very beginning of Operation Allied Force, minimizing civilian casualties was a major declared NATO concern. According to NATO, consideration of civilian casualties was fully incorporated into the planning and targeting process. All targets were "looked at in terms of their military significance in relation to the collateral damage or the unintended consequenceUnintended consequence
In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...
that might be there," General Shelton said on April 14: "Then every precaution is made...so that collateral damage is avoided." According to Lt. Gen. Michael Short, "collateral damage drove us to an extraordinary degree. General Clark committed hours of his day dealing with the allies on issues of collateral damage."
Then-NATO spokesman Jamie Shea
Jamie Shea
Jamie Patrick Shea is Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium....
said "There is always a cost to defeat an evil," he said. "It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher." He insisted NATO planes had bombed only "legitimate designated military targets" and if more civilians had died it was because NATO had been forced into military action.
Human Rights Watch analysis
Human Rights Watch documented and evaluated the impact and effects of the NATO military operation. Human Rights Watch confirmed ninety incidents in which civilians died as a result of NATO bombing. These included attacks where cluster bombs were dropped.See also
- Strategic Bombardment in the Kosovo War
- Civilian casualties during the NATO intervention in Libya
External links
- Nato's bombing blunders (BBC)
- Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign - The Crisis in Kosovo (HRWHuman Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
) - List Of Incidents Involving Civilian Deaths in Operation Allied Force (HRWHuman Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
) - SELECT CHRONOLOGY OF NATO ATTACKS, MARCH 24-MAY 7, 1999 (HRW)