Livadice/Podujevo - Friday, February 16, 2001 Horrible massacre of Serbs before the eyes of the international community.
Terrorist attack on a convoy on the main road Nis - Pristina.
The gloomy sky over Pristina that early February morning. I get ready for work, I refuse to make my morning coffee because I already feel nauseous.
The night before, I was informed that I had to go to the north of Mitrovica because the commander of KFOR, Italian General Carlo Cabigioso, was going there unannounced to hold a press conference in the hospital building (?!??!).
What am I going to do there, I asked? "Nina, some are afraid to go there because of the bridge guard," the boss tells me. "Besides, you should have a conversation with the refugees at the Branko Radičević school, so you can use the day." Okay, I'll go.
The Serbs from the north of Kosovo and Metohija stood united then, no one could sway them in their intention to persevere in preserving the northern part. Their separation came later when some from the SNV (Serbian National Council of Northern Kosovo) joined the Return Coalition and the "Kosovo" institutions.
We were on our way. In Mitrovica, on the hospital grounds, there was a protest due to the arrival of the Italian general, but he entered under full security and managed to hold the conference.
During that time, I am in front with the Serbs who live there, we talk about the daily provocations.
Everyone is saying what I already know more than well, and what will be confirmed just a few hours later, that for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija there is no freedom, decent life, peace, future and, most importantly, security.
I'm leaving to visit the refugees. I hadn't stayed for a full hour when I received the terrible news that the first bus from the convoy escorted by KFOR, which was transporting escaped Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, was blown up on the Niš-Priština highway, in the town of Livadice near Podujevo to the memorial services, which were a day later, and that there were dead and wounded.
Under the rotation, I arrive in Livadice. I find chaos. Many wounded by two of whom were in serious condition, 10 dead (among them a two-year-old boy), and dozens more, out of fear of the disillusioned Serbs, who were standing on the sidelines. A massacre the likes of which I had never seen before in my life. The dead and wounded are scattered along the road. Blood everywhere.
People are screaming. The bus was destroyed beyond recognition and its parts scattered in a wide circle!
I run towards the accident site, I approach the people who are lying down, I don't know who among them is alive and who is not. I approach the gentleman, I see that he is alive, he has serious injuries to his abdomen, but he is giving me a sign that he hears me by moving his eyes. I ask him to endure, to follow my words and not to close his eyes. I take my jacket off to cover him before the medical services take him over. I move on towards the sounds of moaning, the wailing of the wounded echoes in my ears, I can't see in front of me because of the tears and the debris that pinches my eyes, I grab my head for a moment because I feel that I will lose the ground under my feet.
I am begging myself to hold on, not to fall, those people need me more than ever. Additional medical aid is arriving, units of KFOR, UN police, investigators, helicopters... the siege situation on the road that I have always hated, because the remains of murdered Serbs were mostly transported on that same road, and I was going to support their loved ones to meet for moments when they pick up their loved ones marked only by numbers. No first and last name, just a number as an identity.
I left Livadice around midnight. I didn't want to leave until every dead and wounded person was removed from there and the rest of the uninjured were transported to safety. I don't remember returning home, they told me that I fainted when I got into the car. All I remember is the tent, the British makeshift hospital, and the IV running into my vein.
In Livadice, 10 people died on the spot, 2 more people succumbed to their injuries later. Another 43 were seriously and lightly wounded.
On the same day, 16.02.2001. Ukrainian soldiers dismantled 6 more similar explosive devices on the roads leading to Štrpce, otherwise the most remote Serbian enclave in Kosovo and Metohija.
For this attack, Florim Ejupi, who managed to "escape" from the American base Bondsteel near Uroševac, was suspected and arrested!
The UNMIK Judicial Council declared Ejupi guilty, and then the Supreme Court of Kosovo* acquitted him in March 2009 due to "lack of evidence"!
Colonel of the Canadian Mounted Police, Joe McAllister, who arrived from Peć the next day to take over the investigation, was shocked when he saw that less than 24 hours after the attack, KFOR paved over the crater created by the planted bomb. Even so, Colonel McAllister manages to extract the DNA of Ejupi from the scene. He said that despite the obvious sabotage by the army, he and his team managed to find the cigarette butt exactly at the place where the bomb igniter was activated.
He blamed this attack directly on the British soldiers and their recklessness during the organization and monitoring of the convoy. Although Colonel McAllister led the investigation, the American KFOR soldiers did not allow him to interview the arrested Ejupi and two others whom the investigation accused of this terrorist act at the Bondsteel military base! The Americans told him that "Ejupi ran away while he was waiting for permission to enter the base"! On McAllister's insistence that he interview the guard command about the circumstances leading to the escape, he was told that they were already in the US because of an alleged omission in the Eyupee case! McAllister was transferred to another job the moment he managed to identify the fourth suspect through his channels in Kosovo and Metohija. Also, the French officer who was leading a separate investigation into Ejupi's escape suddenly and without any explanation, abruptly left the mission in Kosovo and Metohija.
A day later, the Secretary General of NATO sent a short and very terse letter to Pristina, consisting of only a few sentences, in which he expressed his "shock" at the attack. That shameful memo read like this
