May 21, 1999
AIR RAIDS
Staff at the Hospital Asks Why 4 Had to Die
Related Articles
NATO's Commander Reported to Urge Buildup of Troops
Issue in Depth: Conflict in Kosovo
Forum
Join a Discussion on The Conflict in Kosovo
By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A
body lay curled up under the broken
masonry of what had been the neurology clinic. Under the monochromatic gray dust that covers everything after an explosion, amid the
broken tiles, filthy blankets and scattered bed rails, one could slowly
make out the curve of the buttocks
and thighs.
Less than two hours after the Russian special envoy left Belgrade after peace talks with President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, NATO
bombed a hospital this morning.
Four people were killed and dozens
wounded, including medical staff and
two women struck by broken glass
while giving birth. At least 70 other
pregnant women were moved to another hospital.
Dr. Dejan Sumrak, the chief of the
neurology department of the Dragisa
Misovic Hospital, could barely control his disgust. Three of his patients
had died and five more were wounded when a missile aimed at a nearby
and empty military barracks in this
wealthy Belgrade district of Dedinje
landed on this hospital instead.
"I don't care what they were aiming at," Dr. Sumrak said. "This is a
hospital. This is an utterly cynical
act by NATO."
His associate, Dr. Branislava
Mrsulja, said: "We thought we were
safer here than at home. And why
are these patients guilty of anything?" One of the dead, Branka
Boskovic, had celebrated her 75th
birthday in the ward the day before,
said Dr. Mrsulja, who asked that the
names of the other two dead patients,
Radoslav Novakovic, 47, and Zora
Brkic, 72, be taken down.
In Brussels, the NATO spokesman,
Jamie P. Shea, said that one of seven
laser-guided missiles "failed to
guide correctly" and fell 500 yards
from the barracks, striking a building. Shea, apparently unaware or
skeptical of Western news agency
reports that NATO had hit a hospital,
said he had no details of the kind of
building that was hit.
As he has after other NATO accidents, Shea said, "We will continue our practice of striking those military targets with great accuracy and
precision and we will continue to
take every conceivable measure to
avoid damage to civilian property
and harm to civilians."
Aiming at targets 500 yards from a
hospital, said Dr. Sumrak, was not
taking every conceivable measure to
avoid damage, "at least in my opinion."
The fourth to die here Thursday morning
was a security guard, whose name
was not immediately available because of the need to notify his family.
He became an interesting aspect
of this story because reporters
brought to the scene by the Yugoslav
Army press center discovered some
50 rounds of AK-47 ammunition scattered along an oily, muddy road not
20 yards from the missile crater,
which was full of sewage, ground
water and wood bits, some of them
green. And there was one small piece
of camouflage cloth visible.
Some of the rounds, once cleaned
of mud and oil, were perfect. Some
were exploded, but the bullets
showed no rifling, indicating that
they had not been fired.
Shown the rounds, soldiers at the
scene had no comment. Asked later
at a press conference if there had
been any storage of ammunition on
the hospital grounds, or in trucks
parked along the road, Leposava Milicevic, the Serbia Health Minister,
said there had been none. "No medical facility is used by the army or the
police," she said. "It is strictly forbidden, and I checked this myself."
As for the ammunition, she said, "I
suggest this was the remains of the
security guard who was killed." In
her view, she said, NATO targeted
the hospital, having also dropped a
cluster bomb on the grounds of a
hospital two weeks ago in Nis.
Goran Matic, a Minister Without
Portfolio who often speaks for the
Government, said that the guard
might have had a clip of cartridges
in his Kalashnikov assault rifle and
another three clips on his person,
totaling some 120 rounds.
The oil on the road, he said, came
from a firetruck kept near the barracks, which the Government knew
were a potential target, and which he
said had been empty for two months.
He denied, also in strong terms, that
any military equipment or ammunition was stored on the grounds of any
Yugoslav hospital.
Five military buildings appeared
damaged badly, with one of them,
originally four stories, collapsed to
one. The nearby residences of the
Spanish and Norwegian Ambassadors were also damaged, as was that
of the Swedish Ambassador. The
Swedish Foreign Minister said in
Stockholm that "it is unacceptable
that right in the center of a large city,
these kinds of large explosives are
used, causing this kind of damages
and injuries." The Foreign Minister,
Anna Lindh, said, "The strike on the
hospital underscores the need for a
political solution."
One Serb who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that nothing
NATO did would any longer surprise
her. "This is of course a military
target if you just take the longer
view," she said bitterly. "In 20 years
or so, these babies will be soldiers."
As in any sudden storm of violence, there were bizarre moments
of heroism and chance. Dr. Miodrag
Lazic, the director of the hospital,
described how two nurses on the
second floor had been caught in the
explosion, and how the staff rigged a
pipe to get them down.
A nurse described to Serbian radio
how she was in the maternity ward
with a woman in labor. "She began
smashing things around her and
crossing herself," the nurse said.
"We could barely manage to move
her downstairs to the basement,
where she finally gave birth. We are
full of dust. It was terrible."
Dr. Lazic described another baby
born by Caesarean section minutes
before the explosion, and how both
mother and child were covered with
dirt and dust, and how offended he
had been as a doctor.
One journalist broke in to demand:
"Was it a boy or a girl?"
Dr. Lazic stopped short, then said:
"I don't know. I'm a urologist."
