Serbia tried to ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Albanian Muslim majority. This is one of the rare accounts on this ledger where a foreign intervention is the reason the campaign didn't finish the job.
1989: the autonomy that was taken away
Kosovo, a majority-Muslim ethnic Albanian province of Serbia, had held meaningful self-governing autonomy since 1974. That ended in March 1989, when Slobodan Milošević stripped Kosovo’s autonomy. Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians were fired from public jobs in the years that followed.
1998: armed resistance, and Serbia’s answer to it
By 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army’s insurgency had escalated into open conflict. Serbian and Yugoslav forces responded with a campaign later documented as ethnic cleansing: massacres, mass expulsion, and tens of thousands of documented rapes. By early 1999, roughly 850,000 Albanians had been expelled from Kosovo.
NATO’s intervention, and what it actually did
In March 1999, NATO launched a 78-day bombing campaign, conducted without UN Security Council authorization. It also forced a full Serbian withdrawal by June 1999 and allowed the roughly one million displaced Albanians to return home.
What came after, on both sides
Roughly 13,000 people were killed across the war, the large majority Kosovo Albanian civilians. In the aftermath, Kosovo Albanians carried out their own reprisal campaign against Kosovo’s Serb minority, driving an estimated 200,000 Serbs and Roma from the province.
Where it stands
Kosovo declared independence in 2008, recognized by around 115 to 117 countries but not by Serbia, Russia, or China.
Timeline
- 1989 — Autonomy revoked
- 1998 — Open conflict begins
- 1999 — NATO intervention, Serbian withdrawal
- 2008 — Independence declared
Key Locations
Pristina, Prekaz, Mala Kruša, Suva Reka