June 4th, 1999

How many dead Yougoslav fighters?

    Q: Hello, my name is Roberto, I am a US citizen. My eyes were opened in 1991 when I saw how news reports ignored, underreported, or just plain lied about the number of "enemy" dead. Most think it was a few thousand, and MAYBE a few dozen collateral victims. I know it was much more; like 125,000 dead Iraqians. Most people I know, when I asked them about dead Yugoslavians, haven't even given it much thought. I saw one report said 5000 dead, 12,000 injured. I'm guessing it's 5 or 10 times that; why do I think that?

    A question like this was already answered here, but (so far) we found this number of 1200 soldiers (or somewhere in that order of magnitude) rather plausible. It does fit with the reported number of dead reservists from my city, judging by the size of the city. The Army was spread thin in Kosovo, so any bomb couldn't hit too many of them at a time. The other matter is the good camouflage they used. The Independent's reporter Robert Fisk even mentioned fake bridges with fake roads - used to misguide the missiles, and I may just imagine what subtle tricks they used to hide themselves.

    Of course, any official report should be taken with a grain of salt.

Robb, jps.net