Meje on 27 April 1999 ( 9 Years Later )

They were killed by Serb forces on April 1999, and were exhumed from a mass grave in Batajnica near Belgrade.

A mass grave of 500 had been discovered in Serbia and, after forensic DNA checks carried out by Scotland Yard, the bodies are being returned to Kosova in groups of 30 or 50 at a time.

Witnesses who testified at The Hague said Stojanovic had ordered the massacre in Meje in Gjakove [Djakovica] on 27 April 1999.

The largest known mass killing, at Meja on April 27. Sebastian Junger describes the grim events:


Shortly before dawn ... according to locals, a large contingent of Yugoslav army troops garrisoned in Junik started moving eastward through the valley, dragging men from their houses and pushing them into trucks. "Go to Albania!" they screamed at the women before driving on to the next town with their prisoners. By the time they got to Meja they had collected as many as 300 men. The regular army took up positions around the town while the militia and paramilitaries went through the houses grabbing the last few villagers and shoving them out into the road. The men were surrounded by fields most of them had worked in their whole lives, and they could look up and see mountains they'd admired since they were children. Around noon the first group was led to the compost heap, gunned down, and burned under piles of cornhusks. A few minutes later a group of about 70 were forced to lie down in three neat rows and were machine-gunned in the back. The rest -- about 35 men -- were taken to a farmhouse along the Gjakove [Djakovica] road, pushed into one of the rooms, and then shot through the windows at point-blank range. The militiamen who did this then stepped inside, finished them off with shots to the head, and burned the house down. They walked away singing.