The Studime massacre took place as part of the Kosovo War, over the course of the Yugoslav Wars. Through the violent occupation of the city of Vushtrri and some of the surrounding villages by Serbian armed forces, the Albanian inhabitants were forced to leave their homes to flee from abuse, murder and terror by the Serbs. Speaking Albanian had already been banned by an enacted decree of the Milošević government since 1990.
The expulsion, destruction and obliteration of the descendants of the Illyrians, the former Dardani and today’s ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was an important political objective for Serbia under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević. This was a crime against humanity.
A convoy of some 1,000 Albanian Kosovars set off to flee the Serbian troops east of Vushtrri. The Serbian police and paramilitary units reached the convoy traveling south. The convoy held up white peace flags. Between May 2 and 3, 120 people were killed between Studime e Epërme and Studime e Poshtme near Vushtrri.
The retreat of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) was used by Serbian armed forces to burn down Albanian villages. First, the villages of Melenicë, Shalë e Bajgorës, Tërllabuq, Kurullovë, Skoçnë and others were attacked, followed by multiple other villages in the northeastern section of Vushtrri and ultimately Studime e Epërme. There, some 30,000 to 40,000 civilians came together from different places such as Ceceli, Sllakovc, Drenicë, Llap and others. Only one road was available to them to flee, the route lead from Straße e Epërme via Studime e Poshtme to Vushtrri.
Upon the command of Serbian police officers, a convoy of civilians set off in the direction of Vushtrri and were forced to take the only available route. “The exodus was accompanied by fear of Serbian troops, as the people were afraid that Chetnik paramilitaries and Serbian soldiers would soon come and kill us, kill all Albanian people”, as Shukri Gёrxhaliu, a survivor, reports.
The Serbian paramilitary reached Studime e Epërme after burning down the villages and began massacring the Albanian civilian population.
The arrival of Serbian paramilitary forces signalled the end for many civilians in the convoy. The paramilitary put the Albanian population under pressure, destroyed vehicles and ultimately began murdering and massacring 120 Albanian civilians in the evening.
A part of the convoy was able to escape the massacre and was brought to the city hall in Vushtrri, which was under the strict control of the Serbian paramilitary. The conditions were miserable there as the people had to sleep overnight there without food and drink under minimal living conditions.
During their stay at city hall, some civilians were taken away by Serbian forces and executed. A group of women, elderly people and some men were taken to other districts while a group of men were held in the prison on Smrekonica and abused.
The murder of Albanian civilians in Studime was no coincidental act, but instead took place on the basis of a command, as different eyewitnesses attest. On May 3, the Serbs tried to recover the bodies and remove them, but were stopped by UÇK soldiers, which thwarted their objective. Ultimately, with the help of civilians, two UÇK soldiers were able to bury the victims of the massacre. The funeral lasted for three days, from May 3 to May 5.
The investigator of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Romeu Ventura, stated that on May 2 120 civilians were murdered by Serbian troops and buried in a mass grave two days later five miles east of Vushtrri.
During the ICTY in the Hague, only the Serbian police general Vlastimir Đorđević was tried for the incident in Vushtrri. In the indictment of Đorđević, it was determined that he was responsible for Albanian Kosovars being murdered in the massacre near the village of Studime on May 2, 1999. Đorđević was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
The guilty verdict against him included acts such as the deportation and expulsion of 800,000 Albanian Kosovars, numerous murders and the destruction of cultural and religious sites. Nevertheless, there were far more than 100 additional perpetrators who were not investigated within the scope of the ICTY.
