TRH Crown Prince Alexander, Crown Princess Katherine, Hereditary Prince Philip, and Princess Danica attended the memorial service today for the victims of NATO aggression in Belgrade’s municipality of Rakovica on the 27th anniversary of the start of the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Their Royal Highnesses gladly accepted the invitation from the Serbian War Veterans Association to, jointly with the families of soldiers who fell during the 1999 war, representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the Police of Serbia, pay their respect to all who lost their lives during the 78 days of aggression. HRH Crown Prince Alexander, as the Head of the Royal family, laid a wreath on the monument dedicated to the fallen and missing fighters at Kosovo and Metohija in the battles from 1998 to 1999.
“With deep sadness, today we remember all the innocent victims of the tragic days when the aggression against our country by the NATO pact began. The suffering of 1999 left an indelible, bloody mark on the lives of many, on our entire people… Wounds were inflicted that still hurt today.
Remembering all who lost their lives during those terrible days, we are obliged to preserve the memory, but also to strive to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again, neither to our people nor to anyone else. Because, as has been said many times, “All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing!“ It would be unfair, of course, to say that there were no good people who stood up against that evil, but their voices were drowned out by the cries for war.
Our faith obliges us to forgive, but can we forget? No, never. The suffering of innocent people, so many lost and destroyed lives, makes the memories of the tragedy, of all that terrible destruction and suffering, fresh and very much alive. May eternal memory and the Kingdom of Heaven be to all who fell during the 78 days of aggression”, stated HRH Crown Prince Alexander on this occasion.
“With deep sadness and respect, we remember today, on the anniversary of the suffering, the tragic days of aggression to which our Homeland and our people were exposed. With reverence we remember all the innocent victims and their families, whose loss remains deeply carved in our collective memory.
Even after 27 years, the effects of that time have not completely healed. The destruction and trauma we have suffered remind us of the price of violence, and the responsibility to never allow it again.
Remembering those days is not only a debt to the past, but also an obligation to the future that we are building together. How we remember the past is how we build the future. History teaches us that force does not bring lasting solutions. Peace, understanding and respect remain the only path to a society where such tragedies will never happen again,” said HRH Hereditary Prince Philip.
The site where the memorial took place represents a unique monument in our region – 1009 names of those who gave their lives in Kosovo and Metohija are engraved on forty granite slabs. Among them are 108 fallen fighters from the watchtower at Košare. But also 43 names of soldiers who died in the armed conflict in Slovenia, and 90 names of people from Rakovica who died in the wars from 1991 to 1999.
