A survivor from a convoy of Kosovo Albanians hit by NATO bombs in April 1999 today told the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic that Serb forces did nothing to help the wounded.
Mr Bege Beqac, who was with the hundreds of refugees heading for Albania when it came under NATO attack, rejected Milosevic's contention during cross-examination that the Serbs had taken the wounded to a hospital in a nearby town.
Seventy five people were killed and over 100 were wounded in the bombing, which NATO has admitted was a mistake. NATO planes believed the column comprised military vehicles.
Mr Beqac told the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, that he had spent the night after the bombing in a field and in the morning a delegation from Belgrade came to interview the survivors about the NATO raid and take pictures.
He said the refugees were then sent home to their villages in the Djakovica region. But two weeks later Serb forces again ordered the villagers to leave for Albania.
Mr Beqac told the court when he set out a second time in the refugee convoy, 24 men including his two sons and two brothers, became separated from the group. He later heard they had been shot. Around 300 men are still missing including the witness's sons.
The indictment against Milosevic states that "a large number of Kosovo Albanian males were separated from the mass of fleeing villagers and abducted and summarily executed".
Milosevic is charged with over 60 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the 1990s wars in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia.
AFP