Residents of North Mitrovica: The bombing brought nothing good to anyone

On this day 27 years ago, the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began, and residents of North Mitrovica recall how they experienced the first days of the attack, speaking about fear, uncertainty, and experiences they still remember, with the message that the event brought nothing good to anyone, neither to Serbs nor to Albanians in Kosovo.

Miroslavka Zafirovic was in South Mitrovica when the bombing began, where she lived with her family. As long as the situation allowed, they stayed in their apartment, but eventually had to flee to the northern part of the city.

She says that if there had been no bombing, that would not have happened.

“We stayed in the apartment until the last day. Then we fled from our home and that is how we came here. We would have certainly stayed if there had been no bombing, if they had not expelled us. It brought good to them, but brought harm to us,” Zafirovic says.

Although he was only 12 at the time, Bojan Staletovic clearly remembers the beginning of the bombing.

“I was in Kosovska Mitrovica, here in my hometown, and I felt terrible, awful, because I was a child. I was only 12 years old and still did not understand what was happening. It was a horrifying scene that I do not like to remember. But I also share those experiences with kids and younger people, so that it is not forgotten, so that it remains, so to speak, in our memory,” he says.

As he adds, the bombing brought nothing good to anyone, because the harmful health consequences it left behind do not recognize nationality, and both Serbs and Albanians suffer equally from malignant diseases.

“The radiation is the same for us and for them, cancer strikes without looking at nationality or religion. So they suffered just like we did, and I am sorry that it is so. It was simply a policy that was carried out in 1999 in the worst possible way. But over time they will realize, just as we have, that all of this was brought by America,” Staletovic points out.

Zorica Tapuskovic was in her home near Pec when the bombing began, but she did not remain there until the end of the NATO campaign against the FRY, instead, she ended up in exile.

“We were down in the Istok municipality, in the village of Kovrage near Djurakovac. It was difficult, terrible. It was awful, we did not know who to fear. Whether from shells or from the KLA, who to protect ourselves from. We fled with nothing. I was a single mother of four children at the time. It did not bring good to anyone. To no one, in my understanding, it brought nothing good at all. But what can we do, it was like that and it could not be different. Maybe it could have been, but it was not done differently,” Tapuskovic said.