[A-PAL] Info re Dubrava Photos/7/30/01

[Alice Mead]

To all A-PAL list members

To our dismay, the photos of the Dubrava massacre we sent out 
yesterday arrived at many peoples' email boxes without any text 
included. Our system for sending the a-pal newsletter couldn't handle 
both photos and text in a bulk mailing like ours.
These photos were part of an exhibit of photos shown in Prishtina 
several months ago. The armed men in the photos are Serbian prison 
guards and paramilitaries.

The photos were taken on May 22-23, 1999 in Dubrava Prison at Istok 
in northern Kosova, where the Serb prison guards and paramilitaries 
staged a horrible massacre against the 850 unarmed Albanian prisoners 
there. The guards ordered them into the courtyard and then machine 
gunned and fired mortars at them. About 125 were killed and later 
placed in a mass grave site nearby. Most prisoners tried to hide 
overnight--in wells, basements, corridors, anywhere they could. The 
next day, the guards went through the prison shooting at survivors. 
Others were then taken to Lipjan Prison south of Prishtina in trucks. 
The wounded received no medical care. Some are still without medical 
care two years later.

At this time, there are still a number of Dubrava survivors still 
detained in Serbian prisons. Some of the guards they have there were 
also their guards in Dubrava, involved in the massacre there. It was 
from Dubrava Prison that Professor Ukshin Hoti disappeared on May 16, 
1999 accompanied by the prison director.

  It is grievously wrong for the victims of this massacre to still be 
imprisoned, while the perpetrators go free.

Further information about the massacre can be found at 
www.khao.org/appkosova.htm
We hope to post the photos there as well.