Bombing of Yugoslavia: shelling of a Serbian passenger train
Source: wikipedia.org
In fact, the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO forces is a topic for a separate discussion. Destruction of economic and civilian infrastructure, thousands of dead civilians and military. And all this, as they say now, on the rights of the strong and without any sanctions from the UN. There are plenty of examples of when "humanitarian" bombs and shells fell far from military targets during those events. But one of the episodes caused a special resonance. It's about the shelling of a passenger train aviation rockets, which occurred on April 12, 1999.
They shot at the bridge - they hit the train
Opinions, explanations and versions of why the bombing of Yugoslavia was started in general, a wagon and a small cart. We have our own, and generally negative, while the West has its own, mostly positive. It makes no sense to climb into the jungle of reasoning in our case. Let's just go with what we have.
On March 24, 1999, NATO forces launched a military operation against the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. According to the statements of the North Atlantic Alliance, airstrikes were carried out exclusively against military targets, although this concept itself did not have a clear definition in this situation, since it often flew precisely against civilian objects, including residential buildings, hospitals and even prisons. Moreover, the situation had a clear tendency to worsen: as the bombing continued, the fleet of "NATO" vehicles involved in them increased significantly and by the end of the invasion was almost three times larger than the original number. The logic is simple: more planes - more targets.
Infrastructure was no exception, including road and railway bridges, the defeat of which, as expected, caused heavy damage in the military, humanitarian and economic aspects. One of the crossings that came under fire was the railway bridge across the South Morava River in the Grdelica Gorge. This incident could have gone unnoticed against the background of other tragedies, if not for one “but”: at that moment a passenger train with civilians was driving along the bridge, which took the brunt of it.
It happened exactly after Easter - on Monday, April 12, 1999. Passenger train number 393 followed its usual route from Belgrade to Skopje. Of course, it is impossible to call the situation that happened in those days when cities were bombed for more than two weeks as ordinary. But peaceful life was far from being in suspended animation. The trains ran, which meant that there were those who wanted to ride them: some to relatives, and some away from the war. There were no many hundreds of passengers on the 393rd train, since there were few cars, depending on the load, but it did not go empty. The people were still there.
At about 11:40 am local time, the passenger train drove up to the ill-fated bridge. Around the same time, a NATO F-15 fighter-bomber was in the area, under the wings of which there were air-to-ground missiles, and the flight mission prescribed the destruction of an infrastructure facility - a bridge.
Of course, there were no agreements between Yugoslavia and NATO forces on strikes, and there could not be. They thrashed the ground as they wanted and where they wanted, and hundreds of coffins with civilians are, excuse me, side effects that they tried to minimize.
Bridge and train after being hit by two aircraft missiles. Source: picturehistory.livejournal.com
When the train was on the bridge, the first rocket arrived. Here it is not entirely clear whether it hit the wagons specifically or detonated, hitting the bridge structure. But this was definitely enough for the train to be torn into two parts: the locomotive with one car drove further by inertia, and the rest stood still. A fire started, the scene was enveloped in smoke.
How many people were killed and injured because of this blow, it is now difficult to say. The wagons were contorted by the blast wave and shrapneled so hard that many of those who could move simply could not get out. And there were few chances for this in the confusion that had begun.
But the bridge did not collapse, which, as it is not difficult to assume, the F-15 pilots saw perfectly well. Well, trying to "finish off the target", they fired a second rocket at it. Eyewitnesses claimed that the interval between blows was about five minutes, although this can be treated with skepticism. By that time, some of the passengers had already managed to get out, where they were overtaken by the second explosion. Someone was literally torn to pieces, and someone was thrown off the bridge into the river by the shock wave.
Before the rescue services arrived at the scene, a rather terrible picture appeared. The two cars that were hit turned into a pile of twisted metal and completely burned out from the inside. Inside were the bodies of dead passengers, some of which were actually burned alive. However, soon the search and rescue area had to be significantly expanded, since body fragments were scattered over a large area, including the river.
All that was left of the cars after the missiles hit. Source: picturehistory.livejournal.com
Initially, there were big problems with compiling the lists of the dead. It is obvious that identifying, so to speak, a “whole” corpse is much easier than a pile of pieces of bodies and limbs, some of which were carried away by the waters of the river. And there was practically no accounting of passengers at that time - people just bought a ticket, like on a bus, and drove along their routes. Nevertheless, a little later, the number of all victims was still determined.
As a result of the air strike, 16 people were injured and 14 died. Many of them were women and children.
It's nobody's fault
This incident caused a great resonance not only in Yugoslavia, but also abroad. The Serbs actively insisted that the attack on the bridge with the train was deliberate in order to kill more Serbian people. It is worth noting that the human rights organization Amnesty International, which was condemned in every possible way, first in our country, and now in the West, generally supported this point of view.
In their report, human rights activists expressed their opinion that the pilots violated one of the points of the charter, which directly prohibits the attack of a military target if there are civilians in the immediate vicinity, and also if hitting the target can lead to unjustified death of civilians, which will be disproportionate to the damage, inflicted on military property and manpower of the enemy.
But that was the end of all the angry rhetoric against NATO.
The topic was raised even during the tribunal for Yugoslavia. However, the commission made the expected conclusion. In their opinion, the bridge was a legitimate target, and the train was struck by pure chance. Say, the pilots did not see the moving train, and when they noticed, it was already too late. In general, there are no grounds for any further investigation, no one is to blame. Made a mistake in the heat of the moment.
As for the commander of the NATO grouping, Wesley Clark, he, of course, expressed regret on this issue, but, again, with an emphasis on the fact that this was not done on purpose, but it was necessary to hit the bridge. By the way, the Pentagon and NATO even provided a video recording from the means of objective control of the aircraft, which captured the moment of the attack. However, it turned out that the video was sped up by almost 5 times, which made it impossible to assess the actual speed of the train or establish the details of what happened.
Memorial, opened in 2007 in memory of the dead passengers of the train. Source: wikipedia.org
For the Serbs, April 12, 1999 was a truly mournful date. They have a huge number of examples of mass deaths of citizens as a result of bombing, no matter how terrible it may sound. But the episode of the bridge over the South Morava has become a kind of symbol of the fact that civilians were not such an obstacle to NATO attacks, whether they were intentional or accidental.
Information