-Caveat Lector-
"The 'munitions storage facility' NATO said it was targeting is about
two miles away from the town of 15,000 people.
"Two missiles hit the main building of the Special Hospital for
Tuberculosis and Pulmonary Diseases. Two other missiles struck a retirement
home within the complex, where 35 elderly people were living.
"The attack was not the first time [the town] was hit by NATO jets. On
April 27, missiles struck a residential neighborhood, killing at least 15
people. In that case, NATO said a missile apparently went astray because
smoke interfered with the guidance system."
Journalists Tour NATO Bomb Site
By CANDICE HUGHES
.c The Associated Press
SURDULICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- The stench of blood. A hand protruding through
the rubble. Branches of pine trees sheared off by bomb fragments. Testimony
to what Yugoslav authorities say was another NATO attack gone awry.
Yugoslav officials say at least 16 people were killed today when four NATO
missiles slammed into a hospital and retirement complex on the outskirts of
Surdulica, 220 miles southeast of Belgrade.
Between four and 10 other people are believed buried in the rubble, according
to Commander Bratislav Ristic of the local civil defense office. Forty-three
people were injured, five of them critically, according to Dr. Slavoljub
Cvetkovic.
In Brussels, NATO spokesman Col. Konrad Freytag said NATO jets struck a
``military barracks and an ammunition storage area'' in Surdulica before
dawn.
``All munitions hit the planned aiming points,'' Freytag said, adding that he
could not confirm any Serb claims of casualties.
The munitions storage facility NATO said it was targeting is about two miles
away from the town of 15,000 people.
Yugoslav authorities, who brought Western journalists to the site, said two
missiles hit the main building of the Special Hospital for Tuberculosis and
Pulmonary Diseases, built in 1924 in a pine forest on the edge of town as a
tuberculosis sanitarium.
Two other missiles struck a retirement home within the complex, where 35
elderly people were living.
The explosions crushed a wing of the hospital, stripping off the tops of
towering pine trees and scorching them. At mid-afternoon, bulldozers and
rescue teams were still searching the ruins.
A human hand was visible, protruding from the rubble.
Eleven bodies covered in white sheets lay outside the hospital. In front of
the retirement home, four more bodies of old women lay covered on stretchers.
Rooms were demolished. Shattered glass and wood blasted from the trees were
strewn about the hospital.
Survivors spoke of hearing four detonations in rapid succession between 12:15
a.m. and 12:30 a.m., shortly after they heard the roar of aircraft overhead.
Mica Pjevac, an elderly Serb who fled Croatia during fighting there in 1995,
said she was in bed when she heard a plane pass over and then come back.
Then she heard an explosion.
``From the wall, the ceiling, everything fell on me,'' she said. ``One hour,
maybe more, I was trapped -- I thought it was over, over. I thought it was
the end of my life.''
Civil defense workers rescued her and took her to the medical center in town,
where she was hospitalized with multiple fractures of her right hand as well
as cuts and abrasions.
Momcilo Bogdanovic, a former construction worker, was among the first on the
scene. He said the first thing that struck him was ``the filthy smell of
bombs and human blood.''
``There was screaming of people under the concrete and those trying to pull
them out, it was terrible,'' he said.
The attack was not the first time Surdulica was hit by NATO jets. On April
27, missiles struck a residential neighborhood near an abandoned military
barracks, killing at least 15 people.
In that case, NATO said a missile apparently went astray because smoke
interfered with the guidance system.
``You get the impression that this is a doomed place,'' said Dusan Ratkovic,
a 45-year-old English teacher.
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