May 31 12:58 PM ET
NATO Hits Serbia Sanatorium, 10 Said Killed
By Slobodan Spanic BELGRADE (Reuters) - At least 10 people died when NATO warplanes bombarded a sanatorium in southeastern Serbia Monday, state media said.
Another person was killed when her house in a village just outside Belgrade was flattened, bringing the reported civilian up its daylight raids on Yugoslavia. Two missiles hit an old people's home in the grounds of the sanatorium in Surdulica and a pavilion where refugees were housed, state radio said.
In Ripanj, a village below Mount Avala south of Belgrade where a huge transmitter has been crippled in previous strikes, Slavica Kostic lay dead, surrounded by the rubble of her house.
Her small cat, blood dripping from its ears, crouched near her body, refusing to move. Her son Ljuba was wounded in the attack, which destroyed several surrounding houses.
In Zvezdara, a densely populated suburb in eastern Belgrade, Studio B television quoted city authorities as saying three people were wounded in an attack. A woman standing outside her house spoke on the telephone, its cord stretched through a hole where her window had been.
The latest devastation followed an attack on a bridge in Varvarin, southern Serbia, Sunday afternoon that killed nine people and wounded at least 17.
In Surdulica, civil defense officials said they feared the death toll could go higher as they searched through debris from the sanatorium attack, which occurred just after midnight (2200 GMT), the radio reported.
It was the second time the sanatorium had been hit in the NATO air strikes which began on March 24, the radio said.
Surdulica, about 75 km (50 miles) southeast of Nis and near the highway linking Nis and the Macedonian capital Skopje, was the scene of one of NATO's previous high-profile blunders.
On April 27, 20 people, mainly women and children, were killed during an air strike on an army barracks in the town. NATO admitted that a laser-guided bomb went astray and hit a residential area, destroying scores of homes.
Sunday, NATO launched a daylight attack on a bridge over the Velika Morava River in Varvarin, 150 km (90 miles) south of Belgrade. It was cut in half by the explosions and pieces lay semi-submerged in the river.
``Two missiles hit first, people rushed to help those trapped. Four minutes later, another two hit,'' said Slavoljub Blagojevic, manager of a nearby sports center.
The official news agency Tanjug said cars plunged into the river and 15 boats full of rescue teams searched for victims.
CNN television quoted a NATO spokesman Sunday night as confirming a bridge in the area had been bombed but saying that it was a legitimate military target. Serbian radio reported Nis was blacked out after NATO planes hit a power station there just after 00:30 a.m. (2230 GMT).
NATO aircraft fired three missiles at the Elektro Istok plant and two missiles at the area around the power station minutes later, the radio said. Residents said they saw fires burning in the area.
Later in the night, the electricity plant at Obrenovac, outside Belgrade, was hit, causing power failures in some parts of the capital, the independent Beta news agency reported.
Belgrade residents reported hearing strong explosions from the southern and eastern suburbs of the city, and heavy anti-aircraft fire. ``Everything is shaking around us,'' one said.
Beta also said an oil refinery on the road between Belgrade and Pancevo was hit, with strong blasts heard around the plant around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT).
NATO also destroyed a bridge in the center of the southern Serbian town of Vladicin Han Sunday night, Tanjug reported.
In another daylight raid Sunday, NATO missiles fell near a group of foreign journalists travelling in a convoy in southern Kosovo, Tanjug reported.
The strike killed a driver and wounded at least two people, French philosopher and humanist Daniel Schiffer and Times of London journalist Eve-Ann Prentice, Tanjug said. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the incident.
Kosovo came under heavy attack Sunday evening, with 40 missiles hitting the southern Serbian province in one five-hour period, Tanjug said. The Pristina area and targets around Prizren, Djakovica and Urosevac were hit.
Caught in the earlier daytime barrage were Yugoslavia's second city of Novi Sad in the north, the towns of Smederevo and Kursumlija in central Serbia, Presevo and Vranje in the south, and at least six radio and television transmission towers.