UNMIK/PR/498
PRISTINA---SRSG Hans Haekkerup today visited victims of yesterday’s attack on a bus convoy near Merdare.
Mr. Haekkerup expressed his condolences to the patients recovering at the British KFOR “Reynolds” field hospital in Pristina.
“I feel outraged about this terrorist attack which targeted totally innocent people who were visiting relatives in Serbia,” he said on leaving the hospital. “I tried to tell them I shared their feelings and that we will do anything we can to stop this sort of terrorist activity.”
At least seven people were killed and dozens injured when the first bus of a seven-bus convoy, escorted by KFOR troops, passed over a culvert packed with explosives which were detonated via a wire connected to a command point located some 600 meters away. KFOR arrested two men found in the area, and turned them over to UNMIK Police. However the investigation continues and no charges have been filed. The wounded were evacuated by helicopter to the UK and US military hospitals. Others fled back across the administrative boundary with Serbia proper.
The British field hospital performed emergency care, and those fit enough to be moved were transferred to the public hospital in northern Mitrovica. Several patients have been released, and as of this evening, 13 remained in Kosovo hospitals.
In speaking to SRSG Haekkerup, several patients expressed their sadness that many years of living side-by-side with Kosovo Albanians had led to a situation which has been polarized by extremists.
“I want everyone in the international community to understand that there is no black or white side here,” one Kosovo Serb woman told Mr. Haekkerup.
“I was born between Albanians, and I grew up between Albanians and they’re very good people,” a Kosovo Serb man said from his bed. “It’s only a minority of extremists doing this now.”
Another man had been escorting his disabled child from a special school in Serbia: “I hope somebody will be able to stop these kinds of things, because it is not up to innocent people or young children like my daughter to suffer. But it will take people from both sides to stop it.”
Mr. Haekkerup said he appreciated the sentiments of the patients: “It’s important that the people of Kosovo, that the Kosovo Albanians and Serb communities turn their backs on terrorism. Then it will die away. It might take some time. Certainly we will try to do what we can to fight it. But we cannot protect people 100 percent….”
“The majority of Kosovo communities do reject these acts of terrorism, and I think that’s very important. But things that happened during the Milosevic time and afterwards have created hatred, which some extremists try to use for their own purposes. What they’re really doing is destroying the future of Kosovo….We’ll do our best so that the terrorists won’t get their way. And all the ordinary people of Kosovo will be behind us in this.”
UNMIK Police has called in forensics experts to assist in identification of the dead. UNMIK has set up a hot line for families trying to locate missing members and is facilitating visits to the hospitals.