The joint commemorative session of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, the City Council and all the municipal councils in the Canton was held in the National Theater on the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of citizens on Sarajevo’s Markale market and on the Day of Remembrance of all residents of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, killed and wounded during the war siege in period 1992-1995 year.
The session was opened and closed by the chairman of the cantonal assembly, Elvedin Okerić, and the longest speaker was Fikret Grabovica, president of the Association of Parents of Children Killed in the War.
Since the guests were also high school students, he told them, as a generation on which the future of the city and state of Bosnia and Herzegovina rests, to never forget the evil that happened, but not for revenge or similar motives, but for the necessary acquisition of readiness for all life’s challenges. The path to a better future should be based on education and knowledge, said Grabovica.
His eleven-year-old daughter Irma was killed as a result of a shell explosion on March 20, 1993, and he became the president of the Association in 2009.
The wound in the heart of parents and the indescribable pain of losing a child in such a brutal way never heals and time simply does not heal them, said a visibly shaken Grabovica, apologizing to the participants of the commemoration at the beginning of the commemoration for being overcome by emotions even before he went to the podium.
“Some parents lost two children at once, and it pains all of us that even so many years after the crime, indictments were not brought against those responsible, even though the Association appealed to the judicial institutions,” he said.
That’s why Grabovica thinks “that they don’t consciously open this Pandora’s box for some reason”.
He believes that the aggressors targeted children in wartime Sarajevo. Parents were constantly worried about how to preserve them in the conditions of a long siege and sometimes had to release them into the light of day after being locked up at home or staying in basements and shelters, choosing moments when combat actions seemed to be less. But the criminals took advantage of such situations, often firing grenades at groups of children, said the president of the Association, calling once again on the young generation that the victims should never be forgotten.
Grabovica called for the prosecution of the perpetrators of all crimes committed against innocent citizens during the period of the war siege, including the perpetrators of the morbid “Sarajevo Safari”, about which more information appeared only in 2022.
According to this information, it was the activity of pathological minds, “visitors”. attackers’ war positions and paying money for mowing down innocent live targets in the city with sniper shots.
In his address to the participants of the commemorative session, the Chairman of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, Elvedin Okerić, reminded that in 2007, the Assembly declared February 5 as the Day of Remembrance for all citizens of Sarajevo who were killed and wounded in the aggression in the period 1992-1995.
The date was chosen because of February 5, 1994, when a terrible crime was committed at Sarajevo’s Markale market and 68 innocent residents were killed and 144 injured as a result of a grenade explosion. Pictures of that suffering went around the planet.
“The veil of oblivion should not be allowed to cover the victims. We expect all those responsible to be prosecuted as soon as possible, otherwise, the forces of evil will have an alibi for new crimes, killing innocent children as well,” said Okerić, reminding that during the 1,425 days of the wartime siege of the BiH capital, 11,540 citizens were killed, including more than 1,601 children, Fena news agency writes.
