Units of the HVO and Croatian Army attacked the command of the 4th Corps in the building Vranica on the 9th of May 1993 in 4:35 am by all available means. “Vranica” was immediately surrounded. Thus, on that day began the siege of that city on Neretva.
About 50 members of the command of the 4th Corps of the 41st Brigade were resisting the attacks of the HVO and the Croatian army all day. At the same time, they maintained constant connection with the army formations on the left side of the Neretva River. However, they got only verbal support from the left side of the Neretva. They promised to send them the help that never arrived.
In 1 pm, on the 10th of May, defenders of Vranica were divided into two groups. One group was on the floors and defended the building from there, while the other remain on the ground and continued the fight. Then in the command of the 41st Brigade crashed group of Juka Prazina. It was stated that Alica Pobric, member of the Army, helped Juka by opening the doors and betraying his comrades. With the invasion of groups of Juka Prazina in Vranica, the resistance of members of the 41st Brigade Command was broken. A number of veterans of the brigade, who were on the floors, disguised themselves in the civilian clothes and mixed with the residents. However, superintendent of the building showed them later to HVO.
Members of the HVO urged members of the Command of the 4th Corps of the 41stBrigade to surrender and threatened to blow the whole building if they do not do it. Again tenants put pressure on members of the Command of the 4th Corps. In this chaotic atmosphere, some of the defenders refused to continue to fight and mixed with civilians.
But twenty of them refused to surrender and they decided to breakthrough.
The following day, the 11th of May 1993, the TV news program of Croatian television in 7.30 pm was showed 12 captured members of the Army of BiH, city heroes who defended “Vranica”.
“After the recording, they were taken to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Mostar, where headquarters of the HVO military police was located and where were “treated prisoners”. According to witnesses, they were brought in around 8 pm, brutally tortured, beaten to unconsciousness, their limbs were broken, parts of their bodies were ripped, their eyes were scratched, and some of them were executed.
Contrary to all the standards of the Geneva Convention, they were brutally murdered and buried in an unknown location from which they were transferred to a mass grave called “Rimski bunar (Roman well)”. The State Commission for Missing Persons by accident, while searching for some other killed truths, found their bodies cut in half, without some parts of the skeleton and personal belongings.
Found bodies of 10 of them were buried in the Mostar Martyrs Graveyard on the 9th of May 2008.
Take a look at the VIDEO.
(Source: nap.ba)
