Twenty-three years ago this June, Miroljub Ađančić’s brother was working at the Belaćevac mine near Obilic, not far from Priština, when uniformed men wearing the insignia of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) came and took him and nine of his colleagues hostage.
It was June 22, 1998, the first day of the so-called Battle of Belaćevac Mine during the Kosovo War between the KLA and the forces of Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia.
The KLA had seized the facility, which provided most of Kosovo’s electricity. A week later, the mine was retaken by units of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police, which killed ten KLA fighters.