In Belgrade: the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters
On the evening of 23 April 1999 during the Kosovo War the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters were bombed by NATO. Sixteen RTS employees died in the bombing.
According to NATO headquarters the bombing of RTA and other radio and electrical installations throughout the country was justified with two arguments. Firstly, that it was necessary "to disrupt and degrade the command, control and communications network" of the Yugoslav Armed Forces, and secondly, that the RTS headquarters was a dual-use object which "was making an important contribution to the propaganda war which orchestrated the campaign against the population of Kosovo".
A report prepared by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) partially agreed with NATO intervetion. However, according to Amnesty International
"the bombing of the headquarters of Serbian state radio and television was a deliberate attack on a civilian object and as such constitutes a war crime".
As other bombed buildings in Belgrade the Radio and Television of Serbia ruins have been preserved as a reminder of the tragedy. On the other hand the Tašmajdan park memorial to the victims of the NATO bombing, close to the RTS headquarters, includes names, ages, and job descriptions of each person killed in the attack. At the bottom of the memorial there is a photo of the building taken just after the attack during rescue operations.
These photos were taken in August 2017.
