EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Thursday, April 15, 1999-10:56CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO mounted its heaviest air raids so far on Belgrade on Thursday. Yugoslavia's official news agency Tanjug said NATO planes hit communications stations, bridges and a heating plant in the overnight raids across Serbia but reported no casualties. It said missiles aimed at Krusevac, in central Serbia, had destroyed the town's heating plant, a building machinery plant and two bridges.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO mounted its heaviest air raids so far on Belgrade on Thursday. The alliance has also admitted that it probably was responsible for killing a group of civilians who were in the area of a military convoy that was attacked. Anti-aircraft fire was heard across Belgrade overnight and massive explosions shook the Yugoslav capital.

The attack which reportedly killed 64 ethnic Albanians occurred on a country road in Kosovo near the village of Meja on Wednesday. A separate attack is said to had killed an unknown number of refugees about 15 miles away.

Some refugees arriving in Albania late Wednesday said that a column of vehicles they were travelling in was attacked by Serb MiG aircraft and at least six people had been killed and many more wounded.

Weather conditions, which have hampered NATO in the past, were described as good overnight with clear skies.

Yugoslavia's official news agency Tanjug said NATO planes hit communications stations, bridges and a heating plant in overnight raids across Serbia but reported no casualties. It said missiles aimed at Krusevac, in central Serbia, had destroyed the town's heating plant, a building machinery plant and two bridges.

The news agency also reported damage to two communication relay stations near the western Serbian town of Krupanj, near the border with Bosnia. It added that NATO aircraft fired two missiles at the village of Samaila, west of the central Serbian town of Kraljevo, early Thursday morning. The missiles struck at 0235 and 0245 hours local time.

The agency said in an earlier report that at 0440 hours six or seven explosions were heard in and around the town of Nis, in southeast Serbia, while the Zapadna Morava bridge in the village of Jasika was reported to have been destroyed by two missiles just after midnight.  It also reported strikes on the towns of Cacak, Kragujevac, Valjevo and Uzice.

Five or six blasts were reported in Belgrade at about 0130 hours,  two of which were said to be massive. Studio B television said NATO planes hit a military barracks in the Rakovica area of the city but there were no other details of what had been hit.

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