>>ALLIES DENY KILLING 20 IN ATTACK ON SANATORIUM
>>By Christopher Lockwood, Diplomatic Editor
>>BELGRADE claimed that at least 20 patients in a sanatorium were killed
>>early yesterday in a Nato air raid on Surdulica, 180 miles south of
>>Belgrade.
>>But Nato angrily denied the charge that it had committed yet another
>>military blunder. Reports by Serb media said that the people, including
>>some refugees, were killed when the sanatorium and a pensioners' home in
>>the same complex were struck by five missiles.
>>A government official said that a search was continuing in the rubble and
>>it was feared that the toll could be higher. The Serbs also claimed that a
>>Nato strike on the city of Novi Pazar killed 10 people and injured at least
>>20 yesterday. Nato fired 20 missiles, targeting the local TV and radio
>>station, but Belgrade claimed they hit an apartment building.
>>The reports came less than a day after an attack on a bridge at Varvarin -
>>said to be a legitimate military target by Nato - killed 11 people who were
>>using the bridge at the time to go to market. Nato provided no good
>>explanation of why it attacked the bridge during the day, when it was in
>>heavy use, rather than at night, the usual procedure.
>>Nato categorically denied, however, that it hit the sanatorium, saying it
>>had successfully attacked a military barracks in the town. This appeared to
>>be the same barracks that Nato planes had missed on April 28, killing at
>>least 20 civilians by mistake instead.
>>[...]
>>Los Angeles Times - June 1, 1999
>>ANOTHER AIRSTRIKE ON CIVILIANS KILLS 16 AT SANITARIUM COMPLEX
>>Balkans: NATO insists it targeted military facilities. Alliance admits
>>bombing is aiding Kosovo rebel army.
>>By RICHARD BOUDREAUX, Times Staff Writer
>>URDULICA, Yugoslavia--NATO's intensifying air assault on Yugoslavia killed
>>at least 16 more civilians Monday when missiles slammed into a sanitarium
>>and nearby retirement home in this southern Serbian town after many of the
>>occupants had gone to bed.
>>Four explosions crushed parts of both buildings shortly after midnight and
>>left bloodied bedding and clothing hanging like macabre ornaments from pine
>>branches in the surrounding 17-acre forest.
>>Rescue workers said they heard people screaming under the rubble and worked
>>through the night to pull many out alive. By midafternoon, at least four
>>people were still missing, officials said. Another 43 were listed as
>>wounded, five of them in critical condition.
>>"I heard a plane pass and then return, and after that an explosion. The
>>wall, the ceiling, everything fell on me," said Mica Pjevac, a woman in her
>>60s who emerged after an hour under the wreckage with a fractured right
>>hand. "I kept thinking: 'It's over. It's over. That's the end of my life.' "
>>Monday's was the third strike on civilians in two days by NATO, which began
>>bombing nearly 10 weeks ago to try to oust Yugoslav President Slobodan
>>Milosevic's army from Kosovo--a southern province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's
>>dominant republic.
>>Daylight bombings Sunday killed nine pedestrians and motorists on a bridge
>>in the Serbian town of Varvarin and the driver of a journalists' convoy
>>near Prizren in Kosovo. Serbian state media said 10 people were killed
>>Monday by NATO missiles in the Serbian city of Novi Pazar, but this report
>>could not be verified.
>>As President Clinton vowed to press NATO's campaign to stop what he called
>>"appalling abuses" by Milosevic's troops against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian
>>majority, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization voiced no remorse about
>>the latest civilian victims of its own attacks.
>>NATO spokesman Jamie Shea insisted Monday that the bridge in Varvarin was a
>>legitimate military target. He claimed that allied aircraft aimed at an
>>ammunition depot and an army barracks in Surdulica but would not confirm
>>that they hit civilian targets. And he said NATO had no evidence that its
>>planes had fired on journalists.
>>"I don't have any information at the moment of damage to any civilians or
>>civilian facilities," Shea said in Brussels, omitting his customary
>>disclaimer that NATO regrets any loss of civilian life.