There are no official data on the number of Serbian citizens who left Sarajevo after the signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995, which stopped the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
With the Dayton Peace Agreement, the former pre-war Sarajevo municipalities of Ilijas, Vogosca, Hadzici, Ilidza, Rajlovac, and Grbavica became part of the Federation of BiH (FBiH), and peripheral municipalities became part of another entity, Republika Srpska (RS).
The BiH Prosecutor’s Office received the case from the mayor of Sarajevo
The mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, filed a criminal complaint against Ljubisa Cosic, the mayor of Istocno Sarajevo, for placing a sign on the entity demarcation line, near which there is also a sign dedicated to Ratko Mladic, convicted of war crimes and genocide in BiH. The complaint was filed, as she clarified on her Facebook profile, because of the spread of hatred.
In the criminal report, Karic stated, among other things, that this sign was placed in response to the sign placed at the entrance to the City of Sarajevo, which stated that Sarajevo was under siege for 1.425 days.
This fact was established by the Hague Tribunal in the judgments against former political and military officials of the RS.
Karic did not comment on her complaint, and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH confirmed that they had received the case and that a prosecutor had been appointed in this case.
What does the mayor of Istocno Sarajevo say?
For the mayor of Istocno Sarajevo, Ljubisa Cosic, the sign about the expulsion of Serbs from Sarajevo is a “regular activity that includes the replacement of old signs at the entrance to Istocno Sarajevo”.
Cosic emphasized that the “welcome message posted on the sign” is a historical fact.
“I look at a sign “1.425 days under siege” and my residents say “look what they are doing, what nonsense” and I should be silent. Well, I won’t,” says Cosic, and adds that he has received dozens of emails of approval and support.
Citizens of Serbian nationality in Sarajevo were surprised by Cosic’s move
The family of Srdjan Srdic stayed in Sarajevo after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. This 37-year-old emphasized that he considers the installation of this sign “scandalous”.
Rajko Zivkovic also lives in Sarajevo. During the war, he was the secretary of the Serbian Civic Council, a non-governmental organization that was formed during the war in Sarajevo.
“One hundred and fifty-seven thousand is a really big number, it’s actually a much smaller number of Serbs who left the Sarajevo area for Istocno Sarajevo. Why Cosic put up that sign and what he wanted to achieve with it, I don’t understand,” says Zivkovic, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
