March 29–30, 1999
The Beleg Massacre took place in the village of Beleg, Deçan municipality, where Serbian military and police forces carried out a brutal attack on the Albanian civilian population on March 29-30, 1999. Following the offensive of September 1998, many villagers from Beleg, as well as refugees from nearby villages like Drenoc, Sllup, and Hulaj, had returned to their homes. However, on March 29, Serbian forces surrounded Beleg with tanks, armored cars, and other military vehicles. The Serbian police forcibly entered homes, dragging residents into the village center. They separated men from women and children, locking the men in one house and women and children in another. During the 24 hours that followed, the civilians were subjected to extreme torture, mistreatment, and sexual assault. On March 30, women and children were forced to flee toward Albania, while around 50 men were detained by Serbian forces. Tragically, none of these men survived. Only one man, severely wounded, managed to escape the massacre but was captured by Serbian police weeks later in the village of Isniq, where he was being treated by an Albanian family. He was executed to eliminate any evidence of the crime. After the war, traces of the massacre were discovered in the “Vishaj” neighborhood of Beleg, including bones, fingers, rings, shoes, and other remains. The bodies of 12 people were found, but 34 civilians remain missing to this day. (In the photo: View of the memorial complex of the “Beleg Massacre”.)
Text: The encyclopedic dictionary of Kosovo – Vol. II , Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, page 1053.
Photo: © https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=162580809761594&set=a.162580796428262
Graphic processing: AHCF
