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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
Marjola Rukaj
20 March 2009

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
Risto Karajkov | Skopje
30 March 2009

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


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.


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
Danijela Nenadić 
23 March 2009

"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
V. Kasapolli   |  Pristina
24 March 2009

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


progetto di: riga promosso da: riga con il sostegno di:
Fondazione Opera Campana dei Caduti Forum Trentino per la Pace e i Diritti Umani Provincia autonoma di Trento Comune di Rovereto