Serbia Marks 25 Years since NATO Bombing of Former Yugoslavia

A state ceremony in Sombor to commemorate the beginning of NATO's bombing BETAPHOTO/DIMITRIJE GOLL)

Remembrance Day for the casualties of the NATO bombing in 1999 was marked in Prokuplje on March 24, while during the day representatives of the government and political parties placed flowers on a monument to the children killed in the bombing and in front of the destroyed building of the military supreme headquarters.

According to estimates from various sources, some 2,500 civilians and 1,000 soldiers and police officers were killed in the 78 days of bombing. Severe damage was inflicted on infrastructure, commercial structures, health care facilities, media outlet buildings, monuments of culture and military structures. NATO's operation followed unsuccessful talks to solve the crisis in Kosovo in Rambouillet and Paris in February and March of 1999. The bombing of the former Yugoslavia ended on June 10 with the adoption of Resolution 1244 by the U.N. Security Council.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that on March 24, 1999 "19 of the most powerful and strongest attacked Serbia without any right and for the first time without a decision by the U.N. Security Council."

"For 78 days they demolished our country. Killed our children. Tore up our territory. Still, in spite of it all, Serbia lives. Awakened. Stronger, braver. Defiant. And above all free. Freedom is more than air. They will never be able to take our freedom away," Vucic wrote in an Instagram post.

A number of experts have told BETA that relations between Serbia and NATO are fair. Igor Novakovic of the International and Security Affairs Center has described relations between Serbia and NATO as solid and said that Serbia, even if it wanted to, could not become a member of the alliance due to the unresolved issue of Kosovo. Political scientist Srdjan Cvijic of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy said the NATO bombing was the tragic culmination of the suicidal policy of the Slobodan Milosevic regime "which did not care about the interests of the citizens."