Lake Radonjić massacre
The Lake Radonjić massacre or the Massacre at Lake Radonjić (Serbian: Масакр на Радоњићком језеру, Albanian: Masakra e Liqenit të Radoniqit) refers to the mass murder of at least 34 Kosovo Serb and Kosovo Albanian civilians near Lake Radonjić, by the village of Glodjane, in Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 9 September 1998. The massacre took place during the Kosovo War. The perpetrator was the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
In 1990, Kosovo’s autonomy within Yugoslavia was revoked. Soon after, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed to fight the Yugoslav establishment.[4] After a string of minor attacks, the KLA’s mission became much more aggressive, which led to them claiming areas that were key to Serbia’s fuel-supply, near the town of Orahovac. Years of ethnic tension had preceded the Kosovo War, and spilled into numerous atrocities on both sides.
In September 1998, the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and police captured a series of villages around Lake Radonjić from the KLA beginning with Prilep, Irzniq and Glodjane.[6][7] KLA forces had grown stronger and tended to control villages away from the main roads while the Yugoslav military was positioned on the hills around Lake Radonjić.
Throughout the summer, Yugoslav forces shelled surrounding Albanian villages around Lake Radonjić from their position on the hills daily.[9] Meanwhile, the KLA launched increasingly bold attacks against Serbian targets and civilians.
In September, the Yugoslav military moved through the villages around the lake in order to attack and expel the KLA. Colonel John Crosland, an English military officer attached to the VJ, witnessed this first hand and commented on the destruction caused by those forces.[10] He noted that he personally witnessed looting and burning of houses by Serbian forces and that the village of Prilep was razed to 18 inches about the ground. He stated that the VJ, Serbian police forces and paramilitary police forces including MUP, PJP, SAJ, and JSO were involved in the offensive.
After the offensive, approximately thirty bodies were discovered by a Serbian forensic team. They were likely the victims of the KLA, among whom were Idriz Gashi, Martti Harsia, and Avni Krasniqi.
The corpses were then taken away from Glodjane, and were thrown into Lake Radonjić. Serbian authorities, however, refused access to international forensic teams, despite the fact that Helena Ranta, a famous international forensic expert, specifically requested access to the site [16] Instead, the Serbian forensic team conducted the investigation themselves which caused Human Rights Watch to raise questions about the credibility of the evidence recovered.
The thirty bodies found in the Lake Radonjić canal consisted of individuals of Serbian, Albanian and Roma ethnicity. The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and forensic records showed that they had been killed over a period of six months from April to September 1998 during the beginning of the armed conflict in Kosovo.
