Kosovo commemorates 98 slain in Rezalle massacre in 1999

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo leaders have called on Serbia to accept the genocide that its former regime committed in Serbia’s former province. Kosovo on Tuesday commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the massacre at Rezalle, 50 kilometers (35 miles) west of the capital, Pristina. In 1999, the Serb army, police and paramilitary forces killed 98 ethnic Albanians there. Some of the dead are still missing. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said Serbia’s genocide is known worldwide and called on justice authorities to hold accountable and punish the “responsible persons and decision-makers and executors.” A bloody 1998-1999 conflict between Serbia and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, then a Serbian province, left more than 12,000 people dead and about 1,600 still missing.