Today, Bratunac will mark 33 years since the crimes against Serbs in the middle Podrinje and Birč. On St. Peter’s Day, July 12, 1992, in the villages of Sase and Zalazje in Srebrenica and Biljača and Zagoni in Bratunac, 69 people were killed during an attack by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government of Republika Srpska declared a Day of Mourning on this occasion.
Of the 22 captured, ten are still listed as missing, while ten were accidentally found and exhumed in 2011 in Zalazje while searching for the dead Bosniaks. Two of the missing were found in other locations.
During the war in that area, according to data available to the institutions of Republika Srpska, 3,267 Serb civilians and soldiers were killed.
The program entitled “33 Years – Crime Without Punishment” began with a liturgy served by Serbian Patriarch Porfirije in the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God in Bratunac.
Serbian Patriarch Porfirije said that the central Podrinje and Birač are a great martyr’s region that should be a place of gathering of Serbs, prayer, forgiveness, but not oblivion.
The Patriarch pointed out that in this region from 1992 to 1995, 3,267 innocent Serbs were killed, mostly civilians – women, children and the elderly.
“The constellation of Serbian martyrs is scattered throughout the regions, but there are regions where there are more such stars, and one of them is Bratunac,” said the Patriarch after the memorial service at the Bratunac cemetery.
“We should pray that such evils committed in past war conflicts will never happen again, not only to us but to anyone. We never forget the innocent victims of other peoples, Bosniaks and Croats,” said the Patriarch.
The Patriarch wished that God would grant peace and wisdom so that the suffering of any innocent person, regardless of their nationality, would never be repeated.
The memorial service was attended by the President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, the President of the National Assembly Nenad Stevandić, Prime Minister Radovan Višković, the Chairperson of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović, and the Speaker of the Serbian Parliament Ana Brnabić.
No one was held accountable for the crimes against the Serb population in Podrinje.
In November 2018, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina finally acquitted Naser Orić, former commander of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sabahudin Muhić, of charges that they killed three prisoners of Serbian nationality in the towns of Zalazje, Lolići, and Kunjerac, Srebrenica Municipality, in 1992, BHRT writes.
