On this day, 19 years ago NATO forces began their aggression against Serbia and Montenegro without the approval of the UN Security Council. The order was given to U.S. General Wesley Clark, who at the time commanded allied forces, and by NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. Clark later wrote in his book entitled "Modern Warfare" that the planning of the war was already under way in mid-June in 1998 and was completed in August of that year. After the Serbian Assembly confirmed the decision not to accept foreign troops on its territory and suggested that UN forces should oversee a peaceful solution to the Kosovo conflict, NATO on March 24, 1999 at 19:45 CET began its air strikes, using cruise missiles and aviation, attacking several locations in Serbia and Montenegro. 19 countries of the western military alliance started their campaign from the ships in the Adriatic and four air bases in Italy. According to the estimates of the government of Serbia, at least 2,500 people, of whom 89 children, were killed during the attacks (according to some sources, the total death toll was nearly 4,000), while more than 12,500 people were wounded and injured. Almost every town in Serbia had been targeted during the 11 weeks of the air strikes. The bombing destroyed and damaged 25,000 housing units, 470 km of roads and 595 kilometers of railways. The attacks also damaged 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments and 44 bridges, while 38 were destroyed.
During the aggression NATO carried out a total of 2,300 airs trikes on 995 facilities across the country, while 1,150 combat aircraft launched nearly 420,000 missiles. NATO also launched 1,300 cruise missiles, dropped over 37,000 cluster bombs, which killed some 200 people and wounded hundreds, and used prohibited ammunition with depleted uranium. A third of the electrical power capacity of the country was destroyed, two oil refineries, in Pancevo and Novi Sad bombed, while NATO forces used the opportunity to for the first time deploy the so-called graphite bombs to disable the power system.
"The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 used between 10 and 15 tons of depleted uranium, which caused a major environmental disaster". In Serbia, 33,000 people fall sick because of this every year. That is one child every day.
The number of cancer patients will dramatically increase 20 years after NATO aggression, because that is when uranium has strongest effect, said oncologist Vladimir Cikaric. Now we have 35,000 people that suffer from cancer, and in three years that number could climb to 70,000. Number of malign sicknesses increased in Serbia after NATO bombing by 110% and the worst is yet to come. Serbia is number one in the mortality rate from tumors in Europe, and we have almost three times higher mortality than carcinoma in comparison to the world. The reason is that the dust from the depleted uranium in Pcinski area and Kosovo spread across the entire country. We all breathed it. Because of that we now have drastic increase of leukemia and lymphoma, but also all other types of carcinoma. However, the worst is yet to come. Depleted uranium has the strongest effect after 20 years and it turns healthy cells into cancer cells. That means that from 2019 the number of people who will get sick with cancer will increase, according to some assessments, there will be 70.000 people, which is twice the number we have now.