Balkan Witness

On the question of deaths in Kosovo due to war

Mass Graves Found All Over Kosovo Associated Press, June 22, 1999
Ask someone for directions to a field holding the corpses of 142 people who were executed and he says, after that I'll show you a grave holding six members of a single family. Mass graves are everywhere in Kosovo: more than outsiders can track down in their first days back in the province; enough to keep war crimes prosecutors busy for years, if they choose. Apparently fearing just such prosecution, Serb soldiers, paramilitary, police, and civilians cremated many of their ethnic Albanian victims, or returned to exhume corpses for burning or reburial in single graves, survivors say. But while the 2 1/2-month war was time enough for killing untold thousands, it wasn't enough time for cleaning up afterward. The signs of slaughter abound.
Inquiry Estimates Serb Drive Killed 10,000 in Kosovo By John Kifner, The New York Times, July 18, 1999
At least 10,000 people were slaughtered by Serbian forces during their three-month campaign to drive the Albanians from Kosovo, according to war crimes investigators, NATO peacekeeping troops, and aid agencies struggling to keep up with fresh reports each day of newly discovered bodies and graves. That death toll would be more than twice the number of about 4,600 dead estimated by the State Department in late May, shortly before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicted Slobodan Milosevic and four of his top aides on charges of crimes against humanity. ''We're getting newly reported mass graves every day in all of Kosovo,'' said J. Clint Williamson, a legal officer and leading investigator for the tribunal. ''The list keeps growing.''
The Kosovo Numbers Game By Ian Williams, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, November 12, 1999 (Republished November 16, 2005)
How many people were killed in Kosovo? Opponents of the NATO bombing campaign claim estimates were wildly exaggerated through cynical propaganda. But the totals for confirmed dead are mounting. "Holocaust revisionism" - denial of the genocide of the Jews during World War II - is illegal in some countries. But the downward revision of the numbers murdered in Kosovo is proving very fashionable - even in the New York Times.

War and mortality in Kosovo, 1998–99: an epidemiological testimony By Dr. Paul B. Spiegel and Peter Salama, The Lancet, June 24, 2000 (Free registration required)
Roughly 12,000 are estimated to have died in Kosovo due to war. Mortality rates peaked coincident with the intensification of the Serbian campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”

Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March-June 1999 (PDF) A Report to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. By Patrick Ball, et al. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), January 3, 2002
The findings of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that Yugoslav forces organized a systematic campaign of violence resulting in killings and refugee flow. This study shows a circumstantial link between Yugoslav army activities and the observed pattern of killings and refugee flow.
The study rules out KLA and NATO activity as significant causes of killings and refugee flow.
More on Refugee Flow Patterns in Kosovo, March-May 1999, AAAS

Acknowledged and Unacknowledged Kosovo Albanian Graves There are at least 17 mass graves in Serbia containing the bodies of Kosovo Albanians - more than the eight acknowledged sites. -- Natasa Kandic, Humanitarian Law Center, November 11, 2004

Revisiting "Killings and Migration in Kosovo": responses to additional data and analysis This report confirms and expands upon the results in the 2002 analysis by Ball et al. The report confirms that the data re inconsistent with the claim that the KLA or NATO could have been substantial causes of the killing and migration in Kosovo during March-June 1999. By Patrick Ball, Meghan Lynch, and Amelia Hoover, January 28, 2007 (PDF)

John Pilger and the Tasmanian Genocide Pilger falsely claims that no mass graves of Albanian victims of Milosevic’s regime have ever been found. By Marko Hoare, December 14, 2007 (Includes links to more articles on the death toll.)