The representatives of the Association of Parents of Killed Children in Sarajevo, said yesterday at the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the crime on the Square of Heroes in Hrasno, where six people, including two children, were killed by a shell, that the parents are dying of grief, and that they did not receive justice.
Yesterday in 1992, the explosion of a shell fired from the position of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) that caused a fire in a skyscraper in the Hrasno neighborhood of Sarajevo killed a brother and sister – Mirza and Mirela Hozbo, who were five and three years old respectively, and Abid, Alma, and Kimeta Rondic, as well as their neighbor Jelena Vasko.
Mujo Hozbo lost five members of his family that day. A grenade hit his apartment on the 17th floor of a skyscraper, which caused a fire, in which his children, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law died. He explains that on August 25th, 1992, his brother’s funeral was held at the “Lav” cemetery, from where he watched the burning of the skyscraper in which his children and other family members were.
“I didn’t know that they were inside, that they didn’t come out. I watched the incendiary shells fall. They were shooting at the top half of the skyscraper. Everyone got out of the skyscraper, but they stayed. My brother-in-law was in the neighboring skyscraper, fixing a broken pump, he was a plumber. He went back inside and tried to save them, but in the end, he didn’t save himself either,” Hozbo recalls.
Through tears, Hozbo says that he would not wish anyone to experience the fate that befell him.
Fikret Grabovica, president of the Association of Parents of Killed Children during the Siege of Sarajevo in 1992-1995, says that Jelena Vasko died in a fire when she tried to help her neighbors. According to him, it is very difficult to imagine how they all died.
“All this is not enough for the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to do its job. For countless such brutal crimes in Sarajevo, not a single indictment has been filed. We have been waiting for this for years, and many parents leave in the meantime, most often because of the sadness that destroyed them because they did not receive justice. Justice is very important to us, and it is important for the social community and for the entire country,” says Grabovica.
In the 44-month siege of the capital of BiH, more than 11.000 inhabitants were killed, of which about 1.600 were children. The Hague judgments recorded dozens of incidents of shelling from VRS positions, during which a large number of civilians were killed and numerous buildings were destroyed, N1 reports.
E.Dz.
Photo: BIRN
