Podujevo bus bombing

The Podujevo bus bombing was an attack on a bus carrying Serb civilians near the town of Podujevo in Kosovo on 16 February 2001. The bombing killed twelve Serb civilians who were travelling to Gračanica and injured dozens more. Albanian extremists are suspected of being responsible for the attack. Gračanica is a predominantly Serb-populated town in central Kosovo, near the regional capital Pristina, in a predominantly Albanian-populated area. Following the Kosovo War in 1999 it became an enclave within Albanian-controlled territory. Relations between the two communities were tense and occasionally violent.

In early 1998, Serbian police forces moved to put down an uprising by ethnic Albanians in central Kosovo. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) responded by launching a bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 24 March 1999. The campaign lasted for 78 days and ended when the Yugoslav Army (VJ) left the province on 12 June. The 40,000 withdrawing Yugoslav soldiers were replaced by an estimated 50,000 NATO troops. The 848,000 Albanians who were displaced from their homes during the war quickly returned as about 230,000 Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians fled for fear of retaliatory attacks. An estimated 300 Serbs were killed by Kosovo Albanians in attacks following the war. Approximately 100 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were damaged or destroyed in the region by the end of 1999. Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) officials condemned some of the attacks while Albanian media organizations attempted to justify them, calling the churches "symbols of Serbian fascism". Serbian authorities urged international forces to prevent further attacks from occurring.