The ‘Kotlinë Massacre’ was carried out by Serbian military and police forces against the Albanian civilian population in the village of Kotlinë, in the municipality of Kaçanik. The attacks by Serbian forces in this area began on February 26, 1999. Later, on March 9, the village was attacked by Serbian forces, during which the ‘Dreshec’ neighborhood of the village was burned down. Two martyrs fell in defense of the village, but the civilian population managed to escape. The attack by Serbian forces was also observed by the OSCE monitoring team. After the departure of these monitors, on March 24, 1999, in the early morning hours, Serbian forces, with heavy artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, and over 7,000 infantry troops, surrounded the village of Kotlinë from all sides, which had remained the only village populated by Albanians. The civilian population, about 350 women, elderly, and children, gathered in panic in the center of the village and were soon captured by Serbian forces. In their presence, three elderly men of the village were severely tortured and then executed. A part of the village’s inhabitants, mainly young people, had taken refuge in the mountain above the village. Hours later, the Serbian forces captured most of them. For hours, they were brutally tortured, tied to trees, and beaten with sticks that had iron nails. In the evening, at a place called ‘Shulla,’ about 400 meters west of the village of Kotlinë, 22 still-living young men were thrown into two wells. Hours later, the Serbian army mined the wells and destroyed them with explosives to eliminate evidence of the crime. The lifeless bodies of the 22 inhabitants of Kotlinë, most of them mutilated, were retrieved from these wells in September 1999. (In the photo: View of the village of Kotlinë.)
Text: Kosovo Encyclopedic Dictionary – Vol. II, Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, pages 1055-1056.
Photo: © https://www.facebook.com/GrykaKacanikut/posts/2552031441495982/
Graphic processing: AHCF
