MARCH POGROM - KOSOVO 17-19 MARCH 2004
Ruins of Prizren churches after March Pogrom
Live video recording of destrucion of the church of St Andreas in Podujevo
ERP
KIM Info-service
Gracanica, June 26 2004
We are enclosing exclusive photos and links with video material showing an attack of Kosovo Albanian rioters on the Orthodox church of St. Apostle Andrew in Podujevo. The church was built in 1929 and was set on fire and severely damaged by explosive during March riots when Kosovo Albanian extremists with more than 60.000 people destroyed 30 Orthodox churches nd 800 Serbian homes throughout the restive province.
Czech media confirmed that Czech soldiers guarding the shrine were forced to leave the church, which was destroyed together with the cemetery. A Czech officer confirmed in The Prague Post that he was deeply shocked by the fact that the Albanians dug up the human remains of the Serbs from their graves and scattered the bones.
(On the official site of the Serbian Orthodox Church this church is called by mistake a church of St. Elias)
PODUJEVO, March 18, 2004
Desecration of the church of St. Apostle Andrew in PodujevoThe video footage made by Kosovo Albanian local TV shows arrival of the mob, setting the church on fire and desecration of the shrine. Particularly brutal and shocking are the scenes showing destruction of crosses on the roof. These scenes clearly show that the March violence was not an act of "unknown or isolated groups of extremists" but a very well organized and coordinated pogrom directed against Kosovo Serbs and their holy sites. The film also shows that special brutality is demonstrated against symbols of the Christian European civilization. The film was broadcasted on BK Television (Belgrade) not long after the March riots.
http://www.spc.org.yu/Multimedija/Podujevo/podujevo-e.html
High
resolution quality recording (46MB)
Low resolution quality recording (16MB)
(Quick time files .mov can be played only on Qucik Time Player 6.0 or higher)
Low resolution quality recording (34 MB)
(avi file can be played on Windows Media Player)
(the
church after mining of the sanctuary)
Video link on the Site of the Coordination Center:
Drive-by kills Kosovo Serb teenager
(photo: the body of the murdered Serb teenager after he was shot)
Dimitrije Popovic,
a Serb teenager killed by Kosovo Albanian extremists
in a hamburger shop in Gracanica, June 5, 2004
PRISTINA
-- Saturday, 5 June 2004 -- A Serb teenager was shot and killed today
in a drive-by shooting just outside Pristina.
Witnesses told police shots were fired from a white vehicle killing the
16-year-old, Dimitrije Popovic, a spokesman for the UN police told AFP.
Kent Stica said Kosovo's police force set up checkpoints soon after the
shooting and spotted a suspicious vehicle which was then stopped and the
occupants arrested.
"Two males were arrested and the vehicle seized in Pristina," Stica said,
without disclosing the identities or the nationality of the suspects.
A UN police spokesman in charge of the capital Pristina however said the
two arrested were ethnic Albanians.
"They are both ethnic Albanians," Malcolm Ashby told AFP.
He said police seized two weapons suspected of having been used in the
shooting.
Police said the road towards Gracanica, where the shooting occurred, was
blocked off by local and UN police and would remain closed until Monday
as NATO-led peacekeepers and local police stepped up patrols in the area.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian president, Ibrahim Rugova expressed his condolences
to the family of slain boy and called upon the authorities to rapidly
bring the perpetrators to justice.
The outgoing chief UN administrator, Harri Holkeri condemned the shooting
and called upon Kosovo's people to renounce violence.
"Is that what the people of Kosovo really want? No, it can not be true,"
Holkeri, who on May 25 said he was stepping down from his post for health
reasons, told journalists at Pristina airport.
A similar shooting in March had sent hundreds of Serbs protesting in the
streets of Gracanica blocking the road for several days, irking ethnic
Albanians who attempted to break through police barricades into the Serb-inhabited
enclave.
The March violence left 19 dead and over 900 injured and pitted the two
sides into deeper mistrust nearly sinking the United Nations' five-year
efforts to reconcile the two ethnic groups.
Kosovo has been under UN and NATO control since June 1999.
Bishop Artemije
and Serb political representatives from Belgrade
at the funeral of the killed Serb teenager in Gracanica
| Full
reconstruction of the Kosovo pogrom, 15 – 20 March 2004 ERP KIM Info Service has received from well informed international sources in Kosovo a timeline of the incidents and events in Kosovo Province in the period between 15-20 March. At the moment the Diocese is actively collecting all available information on these events in which more than 4.000 Serbs have been left homeless, at least 8 Serbs died and around 30 churches have been either completely destroyed or seriously damaged by Kosovo Albanian mob. All available information and our contacts with different intelligence sources prove that the operation (called by some as Operation Matchstick) was carefully planned beforehand and that behind it are some of the Kosovo Albanian leaders. |
Cathedral
church of St. George in Prizren after it
was burned by Albanian mob
(with
a click on a photo on the map you will open a page with a gallery of thumbnail
photos
with links to high resolution photos for each region)
Photo galleries March 17 Pogrom
Burning
of Prizren (photos from BESIMI.COM)
http://www.kosovo.net/www.besimi.com/prizreni/default.htm
Returnees
Monks of Holy Archangels and Devic nuns return to the ashes of their holy shrines
RETURN
OF HOLY ARCHANGELS MONKS
RETURN OF DEVIC NUNS
RETURN OF SERBS TO BELO POLJE NR. PEC
PHOTO GALLERIES
Kosovo Albanians rampaged through Prizren destroying all Christian monuments
Pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo - photo gallery
ruins of the Devic monastery
Photo Story: Destruction of Devic Monastery (part 1)
Photo Story: Destruction of Devic Monastery (part 2)
Additional photo galleries:
Photo Story: Devastated Christian Orthodox Sites in Prizren
Kosovo: Five Centuries of Strife and Ethnic Cleansing
| "Kosovo Albanians might attempt to continue systematic destruction of the Christian Orthodox heritage in Kosovo, but they must be aware that in the flames and ashes of our churches, holy icons, frescoes and relics, their chances of joining the cultured and civilized democratic world will burn out, too." - Fr. Sava to Admiral Gregory Johnson, the commander of the Southern wing of NATO forces. |
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 Burning of Devic Monastery  1.000
pixels! |
 CALL FOR ACTION! Kosovo in US Congress! Call your Representative! Now! Letter
to the Secretary of the State regarding Kosovo & Metohija,
|
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 Kosovo
Polje - icon of St Nicholas found in the same-named
church which was burned by Kosovo Albanian mob on March 17 |
 Albanians
celebrated burning of Holy Archangels Monastery all night, say
KFOR German soldiers |
||
 SCENES
OF UTMOST BRUTALITY AGAINST ELDERLY AND WEAK SERBS - PHOTO GALLERY |
 Completely levelled to the ground -The church of the Holy Virgin Mary in Djakovica with the burned parish home. Photo ERP KIM. A part of the church (a yellow wall) can still be seen on the photo. The latest information say that the municipality ordered the site to be turned into a parking place. |
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 Photos
of the Holy Virgin of Lyevish (14 th century) in which Albanian
mob set fire and damaged the frescoes |
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 Scenes
from - PRIZREN20 March - Once a beautiful town with remarkable Christian Orthodox monuments old Prizren was turned into ashes |
 Prizren, St. George Cathedral, 19th c. The
church was burned by Kosovo Albanian mob and additionally damaged
by fire. The nearby Bishop's palace was looted and set on fire,
thousands of books burned |
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 Serbian Orthodox Seminary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Prizren, burned by Kosovo Albanian Mob, March 17 |
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 Gathering of humanitarian aid in the organization of the Serbian Orthodox Church charity - Covekoljublje (Philantropy) |
 An Albanian girl taking out something out from the ruins of the St. George Cathedral in Prizren |
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Smoke billows from Serbian Orthodox Church which was set ablaze by ethnic Albanian in the northern Kosovo city of Kosovska Mitrovica, Thursday, March 18, 2004. - Foto: FONET |
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 Burned Serb houses in the Potkaljaja quarter near the Prizren Seminary |
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| KOSOVO DESTRUCTION
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Fr. Sava meets with the NATO commander for Southern Europe, Admiral Gregory G. Johnson (photo:
Fr. Sava showing to Admiral Johnson the proofs of Kosovo Albanian
barbarsm. "Now when the cultured America admires Eastern
Orthodox icons and crucifixes in Metropolitan Museum in New
York, Kosovo Albanian hordes rampage through the UN administered
province of Serbia destroying most beautiful works of art) |
"It
is now completely clear to everyone that this is a cancerous
growth that can be resolved only through surgery. All the necessary
tests need to be done, the diagnosis made, and then the growth
must be surgically extracted in order for convalescence to begin,
that is, a political process of reconciliation but only with
those who are truly prepared to build a European civil society.
Democracy cannot be be built on institutions which in critical
moments remain speechless or incite violence, politicians who
lack the most rudimentary sense of political accountability,
and so-called multiethnic Kosovo institutions resting on foundations
that are rotten," Fr. Sava told Admiral Johnson, the NATO
commander for Southern Europe.
Appeal
for protection of the Christian heritage in Kosovo
http://www.terrorwhy.kg.co.yu/
News on the site of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate,
Belgrade
http://www.spc.org.yu
Holy Archangels monastery after the March pogrom
KOSOVO DAILY NEWS LIST (KDN)
KDN
Archive - more than 70.000 articles since 1998
Other
sources with news in English:
News B92, Belgrade -
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
Radio
Serbia-Montenegro (special page on terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija)
http://www.radioyu.org/ chose
English language
NEWS
FROM KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
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