Not once did I learn about any of this in school, which is unsettling, looking back, because the Yugoslavian war was the second biggest genocide of European history (World War II being the first), and it happened within our lifetime— in your case, just after you were born!
Bosnia & Herzegovina was the site of greatest conflict. In the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, 8,000 men and boys, some as young as 12, were rounded up and executed over a period of three days, while women and children younger than 12 were sent marching miles through the woods without food or resources, trying to make it to safer territory. A lot of them didn’t make it. This was happening all over the region. Things were bad. Really bad.
However, I haven’t even mentioned Kosovo yet… so what on earth does Kosovo have to do with any of this?
Kosovo, at the time, was a territory in Serbia primarily made up of ethnic Albanians. By the late 1990’s, it was next on Milosevic’s list to ethnically cleanse.
By 1998 to 1999, Yugoslavia had essentially fallen, but Serb troops continued on into the territory. In response, Albanians in Kosovo joined together to form the Kosovo Liberation Army (K.L.A.) a guerilla army, igniting the Kosovar War.
Having seen the damage done in Bosnia, and knowing Kosovo’s fate, the U.S. and N.A.T.O. sent troops to intervene, putting an end to the armed conflict and preventing mass genocide in Kosovo, but not before enormous damage was done. Actual warfare in Kosovo lasted about a year, during which some 20,000 people were killed. Beyond the murders, rape and sexual violence were used as a weapon on a massive scale.
Where are we today?
