Belgrade - Serbia on Tuesday marked a decade since NATO started bombing it over the war in Kosovo, revisiting the horrors and many of the same questions raised during the attacks.

NATO bombed the then Yugoslavia for 78 days, until it ousted Serbian security forces from Kosovo, paving the way for the return of the ethnic Albanian population to the homes they had fled in the face of fighting with ethnic Serbian forces.

The intervention also introduced a United Nations administration to Kosovo, but effectively paved the way for the secession of Kosovo, which until then had been a Serbian province with a majority ethnic Albanian population.

"Serbs got bombs, the Albanians got state," the daily Blic said in its report.

Belgrade contends that NATO, by acting without UN permission and by bombing civilian targets and using controversial ordnance, broke international laws because it was biased in favour of Albanians.

"A decade of the crime against Serbia," the daily Press said, while Politika wrote of the "Bombing that was never declared a war."

Under the headline "Days of death and destruction," Vecernje Novosti recounted half a dozen personal stories, such as those of families who lost children and of a military pilot who was shot down by NATO.

Local sources estimate the number of the dead at 2,500 to 3,100, with the number of wounded at more than 12,000 and damages at 30 billion dollars or more. However, no definitive figures were ever presented.

"It is still not known how many were killed," daily Danas says, also raising the question of Serbia's uneasy relations with NATO.

While the majority of Serbs want their country to become a part of the European Union, far less agree with closer ties with NATO. Public animosity toward the defence alliance peaked when Kosovo declared independence 13 months ago, with a nod from leading Western nations. (dpa)