On 28 April 2001, 16 Macedonian soldiers and police officers were carrying out a routine patrol.[2] At approximately 5:45 p.m., ethnic Albanian militants carried out an ambush on the convoy positioned between the villages Selce and Vejce.[3][4][5] Out of the 16 soldiers, 8 were killed, half of the total.
The Secretary General of NATO at the time, George Robertson, condemned the ambush, stating: "I condemn the cowardly acts of the extremists and my message is simple: the violence must end and their tactics will not be successful."[16] The attack was also condemned by the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana.[17] Anthropologist Vasiliki Neofotistos wrote of "the gruesome event that came to be known as the Vejce massacre" and its aftermath:[18]
"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."
"They were hit by everything," said Nikola Dimitrov, then-security adviser to President Boris Trajkovski. "They used hand grenades, rocket launchers and machine guns. He said the guerrilla's had gone out of their way to disfigure the corpses. "It's unbelievable, and it's going to damage the political process. Now it will be so difficult to proceed."
— Nikola Dimitrov
The leader of the NLA at the time, Ali Ahmeti, claimed that the ethnic Albanian fighters had not attacked the Macedonians, stating they were acting in self-defense and were fired on first by the Macedonian patrol.[4] The claim was not independently confirmed. The United Nations Security Council condemned the ambush, calling it "cowardly" and "brutal".[20]