BELGRADE, March 22. /TASS/. NATO’s military operation against the former Yugoslavia in 1999 that killed thousands of people is unjustifiable, Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said.

"As many as 2,500 civilians and more than 750 soldiers and police officers were killed, infrastructure, enterprises, schools, healthcare facilities, media outlets, cultural monuments, churches, and monasteries were severely damaged. It was an incredible injustice against us, violence shown against our people whose consequences are still being felt today. There is no justifying the crimes committed against our people and country," he said at an international conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia.

He noted that now Serbia is developing dynamically, with a slew of infrastructure going up. "But the lives of innocently killed people, children, soldiers and police officers cannot be returned," Gasic stressed.

The conference is being held in Serbia from March 21 through 24 and along with Gasic is attended by Defense Minister Milos Vucevic, Minister of Labor, Employment, Veteran Affairs and Social Issues Nikola Selakovic, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, head of Russia’s agency for international humanitarian cooperation Yevgeny Primakov, army officers, diplomats, lawyers, and experts.

NATO’s bombardments

On March 24, 1999, NATO began a military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NATO leadership claimed that the prevention of genocide against the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo was the main rationale for launching the operation, dubbed Allied Force. NATO said that during the 78-day operation its aircraft flew 38,000 sorties to carry out 10,000 bombing strikes.

According to Serbian experts, NATO fired some 3,000 cruise missiles and dropped 80,000 tons of bombs, including cluster and depleted uranium munitions, over the three months of the bombing campaign. According to Serbian data, the bombardments killed 3,500-4,000 people and injured another 12,500, two thirds of them civilians. Material damages totaled $100 billion.