10 Killed in NATO attack on railway

10 Killed in NATO attack on railway
By John Bosnitch, Tuesday, April 13, 1999

The lull in NATO bombing over the Easter weekend of Orthodox Christians has come to an abrupt end with renewed heavy bombing. At least 10 passengers aboard a train were killed and 16 injured in an aerial attack at noon on Easter Monday, April 12.

Photo credit, A. Sakamoto

NATO missiles destroyed the passenger train for Salonika. At least 10 passengers were killed and 16 injured on Monday, April 12 near Grdelica, a villege in southeastern Serbia.

NATO missiles destroyed a clearly marked civilian passenger train on a bridge in southeastern Serbia. The dead included a 10-year-old child. Six of the bodies were incinerated, leaving only charred remains. NATO pact officials initially rejected responsibility for the killings, saying they had tried their best to avoid what they called “collateral casualties.”

Starting at around 11:40 a.m. on Monday, four missiles hit near the Bistrica Bridge spanning a gorge near the village of Grdelica on the main railway from Belgrade to the Greek port of Salonika. The site of the attack is 30 kilometers west of the Bulgarian border, due west from the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

The first missile was reported to have disabled the engine car, leaving the train stranded on the bridge. Witnesses said that as panicked passengers attempted to escape, NATO aircraft moments later made a second pass, firing a missile that scored a direct hit on the train, engulfing four passenger cars in flames.

Survivors speaking on local television from their hospital beds described the scene as one of horror. They said people were moaning and screaming for help from within the inferno. One woman said that those who could still move tried to escape by climbing through debris and broken glass to crawl out shattered windows.

**BBC map distorts reality, toes NATO line**
Map credit, BBC	The BBC website map shows the railway as a red line that enters and passes through eastern Kosovo, which is shaded in light yellow. We have here added the real route of the railway as a blue dotted line, showing the site of the attack with a blue cross. The real railway line is separated from Kosovo by mountains and the site of the attack is closer to the Bulgarian border than to Kosovo.

IMC news photographer Ayuri Sakamoto took photos at the scene. His images confirm the wreck to have been a civilian passenger train. He said two NATO missiles had struck home and that the weather was good, providing clear visibility for the NATO pilots to see the train from a distance.

In Brussels, NATO headquarters announced that it had designated the bridge as a military target, calling the railway a key supply line for security forces in Serbia’s Kosovo and Metohija province. We have included a copy of the BBC news website map of the attack location, which gave credence to NATO's claim by making it look as if the railway enters and passes through Kosovo.

In fact, the railway does not enter Kosovo, as shown at left by a commercial Western-produced map of the region. We have also marked another railway line that does enter Kosovo. That railway line turns southwest just south of the Serbian city of Nis, heading toward the Kosovo capital of Pristina.

The director of the Yugoslav railways system denounced the killings as a terror attack on civilians by “cowardly NATO aggressors.” He said that the train was full of passengers, some foreigners. The names of the dead were not released pending identification of the remains and notification of families.

This map, which IMCnews has drafted based on a Michelin road map, shows that the railway attacked by NATO does not enter Kosovo, instead running south into Macedonia and later on to Greece. The orange circle marks the attack site.
Click here to see this map larger.

Reference: To see a U.S. Defense Mapping Agency tactical pilotage chart of the same region, click here

END of STORY

Questions about this report may be sent to: bosnitch@imcnews.com.