The International Crisis Group (ICG) today releases a report documenting humanitarian law violations committed in Kosovo during 1999.

The report, entitled Reality Demands, draws on seven months field research conducted by local and international personnel in Albania and Kosovo, and presents an analysis of the Kosovo conflict focusing on violations of international humanitarian law within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The report, which reconstructs events from March to June 1999 during the Yugoslav offensive in seven municipalities in south-western Kosovo, seeks to raise public awareness of the horrific and tragic events that unfolded during those few months. It presents a comprehensive and detailed legal analysis of those actions, as described, which qualify as serious violations of international humanitarian law.