Dacic: More than 9,000 ethnically motivated attacks happened in Kosovo and Metohija since June 10, 1999

Photo: Tanjug/Tanjug video

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic stated on Monday that since June 10, 1999, when NATO stopped bombing Serbia, more than 9,000 ethnically motivated attacks have been carried out in Kosovo and Metohija.

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"From June 10, 1999, since the arrival of NATO, until today in 9,407 ethnically motivated attacks on individuals and property were carried out in Kosovo and Metohija, in which 666 Serbs and other non-Albanians lost their lives, where 1,471 people were injured, 1,092 kidnapped, 33,411 houses and apartments were destroyed and burned down, 232 religious buildings and 63 cultural and historical monuments damaged," Dacic said at a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

He added that 9,750 tombstones in 275 Serbian cemeteries have also been damaged and desecrated during this time.

Dacic stressed that the issue of territorial integrity is viewed at the level of double standards and depending on relationships between great powers, adding that Serbia did not attack anyone, but was defending its own territorial integrity.

"Kosovo wanted to secede from Serbia, and for that the terrorist organization Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was used, with the help of Western (and) Islamist countries," said Dacic, recalling that the so-called KLA was (for a while) on the list of terrorist organizations (in the US).

He added that there is clear information about this, and that it was also discussed by some Western officials.

Dacic said that ethnic cleansing had been carried out, stating that a total of 372,444 members of non-Albanian communities lived in Kosovo and Metohija until June 1999, of which 239,761 were Serbs, and that after June 1999, 209,068 of them were forced to leave, of which 156,565 were Serbs.

He recalled that another (in addition to the start of the NATO bombing) tragic anniversary was recently marked in Serbia, 20 years since the events of March 17, 2004, known in Serbia as the March Pogrom when, in the presence of tens of thousands of members of international forces and missions and with the support of the structures of Pristina, a large number of Albanians committed a pogrom over the Serbs, when eight Serbs were killed, 143 were injured, 4,012 expelled, dozens of Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries destroyed, as well as more than 900 Serb-owned homes.

Dacic said that a precedent was again set in 2008, when international law and the UN Charter were once again violated by the unilateral declaration of independence of so-called Kosovo.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)