After a photo taken in Žepa in 1995 showing Bosniak refugees appeared on one of the panels during the commemoration of the anniversary of “The Storm” in Prijedor, reactions followed. On that occasion, the agency from Serbia issued an apology and took responsibility for what they said was an unintentional mistake.
“We have nothing to do with Oluja (Storm), we are refugees from Žepa,” Nermina Mujkić Gušo, daughter of Sabine, whom her mother held in her arms in 1995 when they were expelled from Žepa, tells us.
“A friend saw a picture of me with my mother, and he contacted me and I just forwarded it to my mother and said to my mother: Is it possible that this is us in the background, I mean, Storm, we have no contact nor were we there. We refugees from Žepa who crossed over here. For my mother, I can say that she suffered the most mental pain. A woman who fought for her children, to bring them here alive and well and that she succeeded, on the one hand, maybe not to the end , but she succeeded. We were inflicted with great mental pain, primarily to my mother, then to me and the rest of my family,” says Gušo Mujkić.
The Ministry of Labor and Veterans and Disability Protection of the Republika Srpska admitted that during the commemoration of the anniversary of the “Storm” in Prijedor, a photo of a Bosniak woman from Žepa was shown as a Serbian refugee from Croatia, and they claim that showing the photo represents an involuntary and unintentional mistake by the agency from Serbia that prepared the video material, which was hired by the Government of Serbia. Agency “Pozitiv” sent a sincere apology to the families of Mujkić and Gušo, as well as to all the participants of the commemorative gathering, because of this, as they pointed out, unintentional mistake, and they took full responsibility.
“The agency did apologize, but the agency is completely insignificant here. It is a technical person there, it was only a contractor, and those who are responsible for it are the political leadership of one entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina and one neighboring country, whose the highest representatives were there. Their apology, simply, will mean much more than an ordinary apology. It will be an indicator of how seriously they perceive everything that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” believes sociologist Srđan Vukadinović.
In our conversation, Vukadinović points out that these are things that must be checked “under 10 different magnifying glasses, with 10 experts”.
“This abuse cannot be characterized in any other way than as mindlessness, heartlessness, insensitivity,” he believes.
The appearance of a photo at the “Storm” commemoration in Prijedor, showing Bosniak refugees from Žepa, caused numerous reactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region.
