Officers and soldiers of the Serbian army, 18 years after the Battle of Koshare, talk about the horrors and losses they suffered in fighting against the Kosovo Liberation Army forces (KLA).
In a forum titled 'Battle of Koshare', organized in Belgrade, the Serbian military recaounted that the battle for Koshare lasted 67 days and that such a battle is not remembered, Kosovo media reports.
Colonel Ljubinko Djurovic, the commander of the unit for the protection of Koshare, recalling that time, said that at the border between Kosovo and Albania they have been dislocated 1357 fighters, who, according to him, it was impossible to defend Koshare when they had to face 6,000 fighters of the KLA, in the first line, and 2000 in the second line and 34 tanks."The atmospheric and geographical conditions were as terrible as the enemy," he said.
Meanwhile the captain Dusan Jokic, platoon commander for the protection of Koshare, said that until 1999 the Velebit Mountain has been his bitter experience, but what he experienced in Košare is much more horse.
"I fought in Velebit, I thought that on Dinaric Mountains is the most difficult, but the one who named these Mountains as the 'Accursed Mountains' (Bjeshkët e Namuna), was right ... Where was my platoon, the snow was up to my waist. When the fog fall, then it feels as you are on another planet. I have been frozen. I had10 shells on the head. The hell of Koshare may never come again," he says.
Vojislav Vukashinovic was the youngest Serb fighter who was part of the Yugoslav army when he was just 19 years old.
"For the Battle of Koshare I can not speak without emotion ...," said Vukashinovic when speaking about the killing of Koshanin captain Tibor Cerne.
He said that during the fighting was wounded and in that battle left half of his head.
"Unfortunately I left my friends May 17. Will never forgive to myself this. And then no one thought what force was attacking us, but what holiness we were defending ... We had food and water, and we did not eat nor drank because we had not time for this. All 108 of our warriors have died heroically. 256 also were injured heroically, but also those who escaped were lucky heroes," said Vukashinovic./Oculus News