Blood on My Hands Photos
Blood on My Hands in Prishtina, Kosovo.
Blood on My Hands Book Launch, Sydney. From left: Craig Jurisevic, Mark Colvin and Sue Cowden.
Blood on My Hands Book Launch, Melbourne.
The countryside around Kukes, with the town in the distance.

Refugees crossing into Albania at the Morina border crossing. With little more than plastic sheeting to shield them from the elements, many have travelled like this for over a week. Most refugees were from farming communities. They would carry as much of their livestock as could fit on their tractor-trailers when fleeing the attacking Serb troops.
The view from the IMC apartment. The
Kukes hospital is in the background with
apartment blocks and intervening wasteland in between.
Dr Ylber Vata and I removing a leg. Notice the dirty and stained surgical drapes and trolley and scant equipment.
Mentor (a male nurse who assisted me in
the cave) and I at the base at Cahan. We are carrying medical and other supplies back to the cave some 2000 metres up Mt. Pastrik(in the background). Often taking more than three hours, I made this trip nine times.
The cave surgical unit. My surgical equipment to the left, the operating stretcher in the middle, my rifle against the wall. The sleeping bags on the far right were used as ‘body-bags’.
A booby-trapped front door in a village near Kusnin. Serbian troops placed these devices in recently ransacked villages to ensure that any rescuers would either be killed or suffer horrendous injuries. The wire would be obscured by shoes or foliage, the clearing of which by patrol members often had fatal consequences. We learned quickly from the mistakes of others.
Looking back as we walked away from Mt Pastrik and the front line after Milosevic’s surrender and the end of the war. Such a peaceful scene belies the violence and tragedy this countryside had been witness to just hours before.
Blood on My Hands in Prishtina, Kosovo.
Blood on My Hands Book Launch, Melbourne.
Blood on My Hands Book Launch, Melbourne.From left: Major Gen. Jim Molan, Craig Jurisevic, Catherine Lewis and Tim McCormack.
An avenue of tents housing refugees in the UAE camp.
Two Kosovar refugee boys living in a park near the hospital along with their livestock.
Colonel Toccafundi and I at the Italian Military Surgical Unit.
Kofi Annan with entourage at the MSF camp in Kukes as I present the case of Arjana.
Angela (Italian MSF doctor), Arjana with baby and I just before the arrival of Kofi Annan.
On the front line at the top of Mt. Pastrik: a soldier melting the snow and boiling water for a morning coffee. Fetching fresh water from the spring put us in extreme water danger from sniper fire. Improvisation was required to avoid dehydration.
Soldiers carrying an injured comrade down from the cave to Cahan on a daytime retrieval run. This required 6–8 men, and the going was slow and dangerous. Each run could take up to four hours depending on the intensity of incoming fire. Many men died during these retrievals.
Dusk retrieval. The heavy loss of life with patrols necessitated night movement. By this stage of the war I was underweight and exhausted. I am on the right at the front.