15 Reported Killed, Dozens Hurt in NATO Strike on Mining Town

Search teams dug through the wreckage of a bombed-out row of apartment buildings here Tuesday, pushing aside chunks of twisted steel, concrete and wood in hopes of finding survivors of a NATO airstrike that obliterated the residential area.

The overnight attack killed 15 people in Aleksinac, a mining town of about 17,000 people, Serbian television reported. Dozens of others were wounded in the raid, it said.

The reports amounted to the worst single case of civilian casualties since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began its air campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24.

Two corpses, pools of blood and parts of dismembered bodies lay Tuesday among the crumbled heaps of corrugated steel and seared brick. Bewildered residents picked through debris to recover belongings.

Smoke curled from a house along a residential street that caught fire during the raid. Bricks, boards and roof tiles were strewn about, some thrown as far as 200 yards by the blast.

At the entrance of the local hospital, Dr. Bratislav Miladinovic appeared dazed and in shock. He was on duty at the time of the strike and only later learned that it had killed his sister and father. His wife and child were injured.

In Brussels, NATO said that the strike had been aimed at a nearby military post housing an artillery brigade and that the alliance was investigating.

British Defense Secretary George Robertson, speaking at a Ministry of Defense briefing in London, said that if the reports of civilian deaths and injuries were true, “then this is, of course, deeply regrettable.”

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic, who visited the site Tuesday, accused NATO of “genocide.”

“Since there are no military targets nearby, the objective of the criminal aggressors is evident--to kill Serb civilians,” Marjanovic said in Aleksinac.