Kosovo: Serbs commemorate victims of NATO aggression

A memorial service was held at the Gracanica monastery, and the delegations of Serb institutions and the municipality of Gracanica laid wreaths and lit candles at the monument to Serbian heroes to pay respect to all victims of the NATO aggression.The officials of Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan municipalities and members of the Serbian-Russian Friendship Association laid wreaths at the Monument of Truth and the Milic Brothers Square in Kosovska Mitrovica."The consequences of NATO bombing in 1999 are felt daily even today, and one of them is an increase in the number of patients diagnosed with cancer and other serious illnesses," said Aleksandar Spiric, head of the Kosovska Mitrovica interim authority.Dragan Nedeljkovic, head of the interim authority of Zvecan, stressed that March 24, 1999, the day when the NATO launched the aggression, must be remembered and that enemies must never be forgiven.Vice-president of the Serbian-Russian Friendship Association Veroljub Petronic recalled the fallen members of the Yugoslav Army and the police, particularly the pilot Col. Zivota Djuric from Despotovac, near Paracin.Colonel Djuric was the first pilot who was killed defending the skies over Kosovo-Metohija on March 25 1999, above the Cicavica mountain, Petronic said.The Monument of Truth in Kosovska Mitrovica is dedicated to all those killed in the NATO bombing and to the victims of the ethnic Albanian paramilitary formation, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. The monument bears the inscribed names of 194 victims from Kosovska Mitrovica, and empty spaces were left for the names of 39 kidnapped and missing persons whose fate still remains unknown.The Milic Brothers Square, near the bridge across Ibar, was named after the twin brothers Srdjan and Boban Milic, members of the Yugoslav Army Pristina Corps, who were killed in a NATO air raid in April 1999.