‘It’s Offensive’: NATO Bomb Victims’ Families ‘Ignored’ by Montenegro Govt

Eight others were wounded when ten missiles hit the bridge on the river Lim, near Montenegro's border with Kosovo in the country's north. The casualties were a major tragedy for Murino, which only had 462 inhabitants.

NATO considered the bridge in Murino to be a 'legitimate military target' because it was believed to be one of the main transit routes to Kosovo for Yugoslav Army troops stationed in Montenegro.

The Western alliance's air strikes were launched without the backing of a UN Security Council resolution and were justified by NATO as a humanitarian intervention. They finally ended on June 10, 1999 after Milosevic agreed to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. Around 500 civilians were killed during the 78 days of attacks, according to an estimate by Human Rights Watch.

As Montenegro was part of Yugoslavia at the time, several army camps near the capital Podgorica and the town of Danilovgrad were bombed by NATO planes, but the deadliest attack was in Murino.

In March 2021, one of the wounded, Darko Mijovic told Dan newspaper that the trauma caused by the attack was still haunting him.

"I was with my friend in the store when the bomb fell. I don't know how we stayed alive. I saw the bodies of the children who died that day, one was right at the door," Mijovic said.

"They say that time heals everything, but some of these wounds remain forever," he added.

The legal battle for compensation

Montenegrin lawyer Velija Muric at a press conference in Podgorica. Photo: PR Centar.

In May 2008, victims' families from Murino filed a lawsuit against the state of Montenegro, seeking compensation in individual amounts ranging from 13,000 to 20,000 euros.

They cited an article in the Law on...