After the bombs. 1999-2009

March 1999, NATO starts its offensive in Kosovo. Ten years has passed since then. Osservatorio Balcani and Caucaso remebers those days in this dossier: the refugees, the bombings, the generation born during the war

The encounter

20/03/2009 -  Marjola Rukaj

It was 1999 and refugees from Kosovo began to pour into a disoriented and torn-apart Albania. The 1999 crisis was a human drama, but it was also an occasion for two communities, divided for decades, to come together and tear down some national-romantic myths

Ten years down the road

30/03/2009 -  Risto Karajkov Skopje

Bombers crossed the sky by night and thousands of desperate people gathered at the borders by day. In Macedonia, at the time of the conflict in Kosovo, the smell of war was in the air. Back then, for most people in the country, it was as close as they had ever been to war in their lives

Kosovo – Ignacio Maria Coccia

Photographs of Kosovo by Ignacio Maria Coccia, published on “Osservatorio sui Balcani e Caucaso” with special permission from the photographer. To contact the photographer: info@ignaciococcia.com.

Independence night

After Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, the celebration went all through the Pristina night. Pictures by Bruno Maran.

The Long-lasting '89


1 January 2009

Balkan cities


1 July 2009

As if nothing had ever happened

23/03/2009 -  Danijela Nenadić

"They listen to my generation's stories of fighting against Slobodan Milošević's regime like we used to listen to the partisans' stories we were told, once upon a time." The bombings and the generation born under them, the unsaid, the future

Gjakova, story of an anniversary

24/03/2009 -  Veton Kasapolli Pristina

From the very beginning of the Nato campaign in March 1999, the city of Gjakova in western Kosovo became a city under siege and had to deal with reprisals by Serbian army and police. Its inhabitants remember those days