BELGRADE — Monday marks 14 years since a Nis Express bus came under attack in Livadice, near Podujevo in Kosovo, when 12 people were killed.
The victims – the youngest among them a 2-year-old toddler, Danilo Cokic – were Serbs driven out of their homes in Kosovo. 43 other passengers on the bus were injured on February 16, 2001.
The victims were traveling to Gracanica to visit the graves of their loved ones for the Orthodox Christian holiday of All Souls’ Day. A mine was placed on the road and activated as the bus was passing over it. The bus was the first in a convoy escorted by KFOR troops.
The crime remains unsolved to this day, what is devastating, said Marko Djuric, the head of the Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija.
He stressed that the youngest victim of this terrorist attack was a two-year-old child, while those who came under attack “in no way deserved or contributed to become the target of terrorists and criminals.”
He went on to say that while perpetrators of this crime have not been found and punished, “innocent people are incarcerated in Kosovo on a political basis every day.”
“It is clear today that there is no trace of the rule of law here,” Djuric concluded.
