12.04.2019.
Twenty Years of Rocketing the Train in Grdelica
A delegation of the Ministry of Defence headed by Commander of the Third Training Centre Lieutenant Slađan Cvetković laid wreaths at the monument to the killed passengers of the train which had been hit on this day twenty years ago with two NATO missiles.
At the commemoration, the wreaths and flowers were laid by family members and the friends of the killed, and representatives of Jablanica district, town of Leskovac, Railway Union, associations and organisations.The international passenger train No. 393 on the line Belgrade-Niš-Skopje was hit at the moment of crossing a bridge. Identification was carried out for 15 killed but the exact number of victims was never determined. It is assumed that more than 50 passengers lost their lives.
The bombardment occurred on 12th April 1999 around 11.40 according to the local time. A missile AGM-130 fired from a NATO plane F-15E, hid the train when it crossed a bridge on the river Južna Morava.The blast of the first projectile, which hit the beginning of the second car, threw the locomotive and the first car far from the place of the accident. The second projectile fried the third and the fourth was glued to the rails. Two more missiles fell on a nearby road bridge on the Corridor 10.
At first, NATO denied the attack on the train, but nevertheless it did confirm it later calling it “collateral damage”.
