The “Suhareka Massacre” took place on March 26, 1999, when Serbian military and police forces targeted the Berisha family in the town of Suhareka. In this brutal attack, 57 members of the Berisha family were killed. Around noon, Serbian forces surrounded the Berisha homes, forcibly removing the residents. They separated the men from the women and children, shooting seven men in front of the house. The women and children, who had been told to flee, were later intercepted near the Suhareka bus station and forced into the “Kalabria” cafe. Once inside, the soldiers opened fire on them with machine guns for about 30 minutes, killing indiscriminately from a 10-month-old baby to a 65-year-old woman. After a second round of shooting, they threw grenades into the group, further adding to the carnage. To cover up the massacre, the bodies were loaded onto a covered truck, and during transport, any remaining survivors were killed. However, three people—two women, Shyhretja and Vjollca, and an 8-year-old boy, Gramoz—managed to escape. They jumped from the truck near the village of Malësi e Re and found refuge. Shyhretja was helped by locals and taken to a Kosovo Liberation Army base, while Vjollca and Gramoz took shelter in the village of Caparc, Prizren. The bodies of the Berisha family were initially buried at a barracks range in Prizren before being moved to Batajnica near Belgrade two weeks later.
(In the photo: View from the Museum of Martyrs of the Berisha family in Suharekë.)
Text: The encyclopedic dictionary of Kosovo – Vol. II , Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, page 1060–1061.
Photo: © https://www.facebook.com/albini2017/posts/765397201620676?ref=embed_post
Graphic processing: AHCF
