Bar massacre

Bar massacre
Location Bar, Montenegro, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia
Date 1-2 April 1945
Target Kosovo Albanians
Attack type
 Massacre
Deaths 400–450 to 1,500–2,000
Perpetrators Yugoslav Partisans

The Bar massacre (Albanian: Masakra e Tivarit) was the killing of an unclear number of mostly ethnic Albanian recruits from Kosovo in Bar by Yugoslav Partisans in late March or early April 1945, at the end of World War II.

During the 1942, city of Bar became a home of many Serbian and other refugees who were forced to flee from Kosovo and to escape the violence done by Albanian units. Many of them joined the Partisan forces and entered the service in Bar.[1]

The victims were Albanian recruits from Kosovo, who had been pressed by the Yugoslav Partisans into service. These men were then assembled in Prizren and marched on foot in three columns to Bar, through the rugged mountain ranges of Kosovo and Montenegro and then into Bar where they were supposed to receive short training and then sent off to the front.[1] Upon arrival locals reported that these men, who had marched a considerable distance, were "exhausted" and "distressed". The column of men which stretched a few kilometres were then gathered on the Barkso Polje. At the one moment, in Polje, one of the Albanians from the column attacked and killed one of the Yugoslav officiers, Boža Dabanovića.[1] Very soon after that somebody from the column threw a smuggled bomb at the commander of the brigade.[1] This created a panic among the Partisans. The guards watching over the recruits then fired into the crowd killing many and prompting the survivors to flee into the surrounding mountains.[1] In another case several hundred Albanians were herded into a tunnel, near Bar, which was subsequently sealed off so that all of those trapped within the tunnel were asphyxiated.[2]

Yugoslav sources put the number of victims at 400[1] while Albanian sources put the figure at 2,000 killed in Bar alone.[3] According to Croatian historian Ljubica Štefan, the Partisans killed 1,600 Albanians in Bar on 1 April after an incident at a fountain.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Željko Milović-DRUGI SVJETSKI RAT". Montenengrina Digitalna Biblioteka.
  2. ↑ Miranda Vickers. The Albanians: A Modern History. I.B.Tauris.
  3. ↑ "Massive Grave of Albanian Victims of Tivari Massacre uncovered". Albanian Telegraphic Agency. 19 September 1996. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  4. ↑ Ljubica Štefan (1999). Mitovi i zatajena povijest. K. Krešimir. ISBN 978-953-6264-85-8.

Coordinates: 42°06′N 19°06′E / 42.1°N 19.1°E / 42.1; 19.1


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