Information Service

October 4, 2002

Tanjug - Yugoslav information agency
Bomb Attack On Returned Serb Families

Gnjilane, 03 Oct (Tanjug) - On Wednesday a special KFOR unit dismantled two unexploded bombs thrown on two Serb houses, owned by brothers Momir and Mica Cuckic. The operation lasted for ten hours and was secured by strong police and army forces.
Both Cuckic families with seven children are the first Serb families to return to the city of Gnjilane. These families returned to their homes thanks to the help of ARC, and American NGO.

BETA (Belgrade)
Another Kosovo Serb girl raped in Mitrovica

BELGRADE -- Thursday - Another Serb girl under 18 has been raped in the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, said a UN regional spokesman.
"This case is similar to the previous one. She was also taken from the southern part of town and again four people took part,” said the spokesman, reports the daily Politika.
"No one's been arrested yet, but we are on the case", said a UNMIK police spokesman.
This comes shortly after two other girls, one Serb and one Bosniak, from northern Kosovska Mitrovica were kidnapped and taken to Pristina and raped.
Having released the girls two Kosovo Albanians suspects were arrested by UNMIK police.

Associated Press
U.N. forensic experts exhume human remains from graves in Kosovo
AP, Thu Oct 3, 8:53 AM ET

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - U.N. forensic experts have started to examine 28 bodies found in unmarked graves in southern Kosovo, an official said Thursday.

The remains were exhumed on Tuesday and Wednesday from recently found individual graves in Brekovac, a village on the outskirts of Djakovica, a town some 90 kilometers (56 miles) southwest of the capital Pristina, said U.N. spokesman Andrea Angeli.
"We found out about these graves only recently," he said.
The bodies, exhumed from graves located between a Muslim cemetery belonging to ethnic Albanians and a Catholic one, were taken to a U.N.-run laboratory for examination to help determine their identity, Angeli said.
It is believed that most of those buried in unmarked graves were killed during or after the fighting in Kosovo, which is still formally part of Yugoslavia, and buried in mid-1999, he said.
Meanwhile, Slavisa Dobricanin, a Yugoslav expert in the forensic team working at the graves, told Belgrade-based media that the remains were believed to be those of Serbs and Gypsies.
"We may know more about the victims by the end of next week if everything goes as planned. By then we may find out their names," he told the Fonet news agency.
The discovery of the graves was allegedly based on testimony from an ethnic Albanian who helped bury the bodies, Dobricanin was quoted as saying.
The United Nations ( news - web sites) and NATO ( news - web sites) took control of Kosovo in June 1999 following a 78-day alliance air war that halted a Serb crackdown on idependence-minded ethnic Albanians. That conflict left an estimated 10,000 people killed in the province.

SRNA
Coalition "Return" requests Daci's and Rexhepi's dismissal

PRISTINA -- Thursday - At today's Kosovo Parliament sitting the Serb coalition Return requested the dismissal of the Parliament speaker Nedzat Daci and Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi. They also want Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova held accountable for abusing the institutions of the system to promote the idea of an independent Kosovo.

Explaining this request, head of the Return caucus MP Rada Trajkovic said that the job of the coalition's MPs is not to sit in Kosovo institutions that are being used to establish an independent Kosovo.

"Our role is to see that the honouring of human rights is secured through these institutions", said Trajkovic and added that, since the deployment of the peace mission in Kosovo, the Serb community "has been faced with an ethnic and human exodus".

To back her claims Trajkovic said that, before the conflicts, the population in Pristina was 250 000 of which 45 000 people were Serbs. According to official OSCE statistics, there are more than 650 000 people living in Pristina today, of which only 185 are Serbs.

"This does not justify the international community's role", said Trajkovic.

At the same time, the Albanians wanted UNMIK chief Michael Steiner held accountable for exceeding his authority by releasing a plan to resolve the Kosovska Mitrovica issue. The Parliament has requested Steiner to address the parliament at the next sitting scheduled for October 10 and explain the plan.

Information Service of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Kosovo and Metohija