Račak massacre

Račak Incident
Račak Location of Račak.
Location	Račak, Kosovo, FR Yugoslavia
Coordinates	42°25′46″N 21°00′59″E / 42.42944°N 21.01639°E / 42.42944; 21.01639Coordinates: 42°25′46″N 21°00′59″E / 42.42944°N 21.01639°E / 42.42944; 21.01639
Date	15 January 1999 (Central European Time)
Target	Kosovo Albanians, Kosovo Liberation Army
Attack type	massacre
Deaths	45 (Including 9 KLA insurgents)
Perpetrators	Special Anti-Terrorism Unit and JSO

The Račak operation (Serbian: Акција Рачак/Akcija Račak) or Račak massacre (Albanian: Masakra e Reçakut)) was the mass killing of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak (Albanian: Reçak) in central Kosovo in January 1999. The killings were perpetrated by Serbian security forces. The Serbian government refused to let a war crimes prosecutor visit the site, and maintained that the casualties were all members of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army killed in combat with state security forces.

The killings were a major factor in NATO deciding to use force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The killings were investigated by two separate forensic teams, the first a joint Yugoslavian and Belarusian team and the second a Finnish team. The first team's report, which was commissioned by the Yugoslav government, concluded that those killed, who included a woman and 12-year-old child, were all separatist guerrillas and not civilians.

Račak is a small Albanian-inhabited village in the Štimlje municipality of southern Kosovo, in the south of Serbia. By 1998 it had become the scene of activity by the Albanian separatist organization Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It had a population of around 2,000 people prior to the displacement of most of its inhabitants during Yugoslav military activity in the summer of 1998. By January 1999, around 350 people were reported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to be living in the village. The KLA was highly active in the region and almost certainly had a presence in Račak itself, with a base near a local power plant.