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Keith Bennet, from the 'Socialist Friends of China', speaks at the event in London on May 24. /CGTN
On March 24 1999, amid the backdrop of the Yugoslav wars that dominated much of the 1990's, NATO launched an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Bombing targets were mostly concentrated across Serbia, including the capital Belgrade and Novi Sad.
Twenty six years later, with another European conflict as the backdrop, over a hundred people gathered at the Bishop Nikolaj Serbian Community Centre in West London to mark the anniversary.
From left to right: Laurie Mayer (hidden), Marko Gasic, Michael Stenton, Misha Gavrilovic and Kate Hudson on May 24. /CGTN
A panel of speakers included former BBC and Sky newsreader Laurie Mayer, lecturer and author Michael Stenton and the former chair on the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Kate Hudson.
"If a lesson could have been learned from the events of 1999, it was that a lot of what NATO wanted could have been achieved through negotiation," said Stenton - in an interview with CGTN Europe.
"What still remains a problem within the NATO alliance is that saying 'no' to the most powerful member [the United States] is difficult," he added.
Firemen point at the heavily damaged Chinese embassy in Belgrade after it was hit by NATO missiles on May 7, 1999. /Archive/Reuters
On May 7 1999, a NATO bombing mission on Belgrade struck the People's Republic of China embassy in the Serbian capital. Three Chinese journalists, Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying, and Shao Yunhuan, were killed. U.S. President Bill Clinton apologized for the event and stated it was an accident.
A visitor to an exhibition looks at portraits of three Chinese people killed in NATO's bombing of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade. /Archive/Reuters
"It was indiscriminate bombing, and it was appalling what happened to the Chinese embassy," Laurie Mayer told CGTN Europe.
In May 2024, a new China Cultural Centre in Belgrade opened to the public, and the site of the former embassy was marked with a plaque. But memories of the event still linger.
"With war raging in Europe and the Middle East, it is appropriate that we remember and mark this anniversary of the first time that full-scale war returned to our continent since the defeat of fascism in 1945," said Keith Bennet of the 'Socialist Friends of China'.
"This is also the 80th anniversary year of that victory. The peoples of both Serbia and China played heroic and indispensable parts in the defeat of fascism."
He added: "The indestructible friendship between China and Serbia, which we might call China's best friend in Europe, is the most fitting tribute to their memory, demonstrating as it does that their sacrifice was not in vain."
Two injured Chinese men sit in an ambulance outside the Chinese embassy after the NATO air strikes. /Archive/Reuters
The anniversary event in London was organized by two co-chairman of 'British-Serbian Alliance for Peace' - Misha Gavrilovic and Marko Gasic.
"The bombing of the Chinese embassy is, to some extent, remembered in NATO countries. But it is only recalled as a superficial operation. The embassy was sovereign Chinese territory," Gasic told CGTN Europe.