Civilian casualties during Operation Allied Force
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, criticized NATO's decision to bomb civilian infrastructure in the war.
Targets were "looked at in terms of their military significance in relation to the collateral damage or the unintended consequence that might be there", according to General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
[3] On March 30, 1999, during a two-day air raid on the Sloboda munitions plant in Čačak, Mileva Kuveljić was killed in her home outside of the factory from airstrikes.
[4] On April 1, 1999 at 5:05 am local time, the Varadin Bridge in Novi Sad was destroyed by NATO projectiles, killing a 29-year old NIS refinery worker Oleg Nasov.
[11] A total of 35 homes and 125 apartment units were destroyed, with no obvious military target in the vicinity according to the Serbian newspaper Politika.
[11] On April 12, 1999, NATO airstrikes struck a railway bridge in Grdelica, hitting a passenger train on the Niš - Preševo line.
[15] In a commemorative gathering held on April 12, 2017, Miodrag Poledica, Serbia's Minister of Construction, Transport, and Infrastructure, asserted that "the exact number of those killed was never determined, but it's assumed that there were more than fifty.
[10] On April 14, during daylight hours, NATO aircraft repeatedly bombed Albanian refugee movements over a twelve-mile (19 km) stretch of road between Gjakova and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing 73 civilians and injuring 36 others.
The attack began at 1:29pm and persisted for about two hours, causing civilian deaths in numerous locations on the convoy route near the villages of Bistrazin, Gradis, Madanaj, and Meja.
A CNN journalist named Alessio Vinci subsequently visited the local morgue, where he reported 16 civilians killed as a result of the attack.
[24] On May 1, 1999, a Niš-Ekspres bus taking passengers to Kosovo was hit by NATO missiles when it crossed a bridge in the village of Lužane near Podujevo.2 The number of casualties reported from the Niš-Ekspres bombing vary, with Human Rights Watch recording 39 civilians killed[14] whereas the Minister of Health Leposava Milićević reported that 47 civilians killed in the bus bombing had been identified.
[27] NATO denied responsibility,[28] however a remnant of a bomb found in Savine Vode after the attack had the markings of Magnavox, an American electronics manufacturer.
[30] A salvo of US JDAM GPS-guided bombs struck the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Belgrade, killing three Chinese diplomats and injuring 20 others.
Starting before midnight and lasting into the morning hours of May 14, 1999, NATO planes bombed the village of Koriša in Kosovo, where Albanian peasants were seeking refuge in a convoy.
[36] At approximately 10:20 am local time on May 19, 1999, a small industrial area in Gnjilane was struck by NATO airstrikes, immediately killing three women who were working at the agricultural firm "Mladost".
[37] At approximately 12:50 am local time on May 19, 1999, the University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović in Belgrade was destroyed by NATO laser-guided bombs.
[14] At 1:05 pm local time on the following day, 1999, 10 civilians were killed when NATO bombers mounted a daylight raid on a bridge over the Great Morava river in Varvarin.
[48] On the same day, Human Rights Watch recorded that airstrikes killed three civilians in three separated incidents throughout central and southern Serbia; in Vranje, on the "Raška bridge", and in Draževac.
[14] Over the night of June 7-8, 1999, one civilian was killed in Novi Sad's Šangaj neighborhood when a petroleum processing plant was struck.
