Vejce ambush



The Vejce ambush occurred when militants of the NLA killed eight soldiers of the ARM, on the late afternoon of 28 April 2001 near Vejce, a village in the Šar Mountains. It was one of the most effective ambushes of the Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia.

Anthropologist Vasiliki P. Neofotistos writes of "the gruesome event that came to be known as the Vejce massacre" and its aftermath:

"On 28 April NLA insurgents killed eight Macedonian male commandos in the Macedonian Army Special Forces, also known as "Wolves" (Volci), in an ambush near the village of Vejce, nine miles north of Tetovo. According to the eyewitness account of the only Macedonian soldier who managed to escape the ambush, the assailants were bearded men. The killing shocked public opinion because the reportedly bearded assailants used knives to dig out the eyes and cut off the ears and genitals of the Macedonian soldiers while the soldiers were still alive, and raised once again haunting questions concerning the origin of the people who committed these atrocious acts. The mutilation of the commandos' bodies, together with rumors about mujahideen groups operating in Macedonia, motivated people to action: in the city of Bitola (home of four of the commandos), Macedonians formed community self-defense groups; in Skopje, gunmen in a passing car opened fire on the Albanian Embassy and on an Albanian-owned pizzeria, killing an Albanian man; businesses and stores of Albanians and other Muslims in both cities were looted or burned."