Page "National Liberation Army (Albanians of Macedonia)" Paragraph 10

Another incident which is claimed by Macedonian government to be a war crime was that of the so-called Vejce massacre where Albanian guerrillas ambushed and killed 8 Macedonian special forces from the Lions unit.

Where allegedly the victims were executed with cold steel weapons. A patrol of 16 special operatives were coming back from a raid in a nearby village which they had raided a few hours earlier they looted and beat the villagers is what they said, this was done several times a week through 5 villages the patrol rout was always the same which the investigation after the massacre claimed that Albanian guerrillas had been monitoring the patrol for some weeks after they got complains by the ethnic Albanian villagers and had realised that the patrol was always the same rout and approximate times.

The families of the dead soldiers and several ministers claim that the information was sold to the guerrillas and that a major betrayal took place.

After setting up and ambush and attacking their lightly armoured Humvee vehicles with small arms fire and RPG ’ s the patrol stopped and Macedonian forces and guerrillas exchanged fire in a short skirmish, after soldiers started retreating half of the patrol managed to escape one soldier was shot and 7 others captured and allegedly executed with knives and then their corpses were allegedly burned. News of the massacre sparked local uprisings against Muslim Albanians in several towns and cities across Macedonia, and such revolts included burning and vandalising shops and Mosques.

Surviving members of the roadside patrol that was massacred gave eyewitness testimony of the killings.

They claimed that the massacre was carried out by a group of 10 bearded men.

Till this day the bodies were not released to the public or civilian investigators and autopsies were carried out in a military morgue.