After the statement of the American ambassador Michael Murphy that the Kazani memorial is incomplete without mentioning the names of all the victims, but also the perpetrators of the crimes, the mayor of Sarajevo also spoke out.
“Neither the monument to the children killed in besieged Sarajevo, nor the monument to the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica says who the perpetrator is. I am very proud and I think that this city administration has made a historic step forward by erecting a monument in Kazani. It took more than 25 years to erect the monument, “said Benjamina Karic.
In November last year, the Kazani memorial, dedicated to the killed citizens of Sarajevo with Serbian and Croatian nationality during 1992 and 1993 at the Kazani site, was unveiled.
At the initiative of the Mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, and according to the adopted Decision of the City Council, the text on the memorial in Kazani reads:
”MEMORIAL OF KAZANI
(1992-1993)
We will forever, with sadness and respect, remember ourfellow citizens who were killed.
At the memorial, numerous delegations, including Sarajevo Mayor Karic, High Representative (HR) of the International Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Christian Schmidt, as well as representatives of several levels of government, associations, and political parties, laid flowers and paid tribute to the victims.
Earlier, the City Council of the City of Sarajevo accepted the proposal of Mayor Karic that in the future, November 9th will be officially the Day of Remembrance of the Victims in Kazani, when the exhumation of their remains began.
Kazani is an inaccessible site on the slopes of Trebevic, where during the war in 1992 and 1993, members of the Republic of BiH (RBiH) Army, led by Musan Topalovic Caco, brought and killed civilians who were then thrown into a pit.
So far, the remains of 23 people have been exhumed from the pit in Kazani. 16 victims have been identified. Most of them were Sarajevo Serbs.
In 1996, 14 former soldiers of the RBiH Army were sentenced to 10 months to 6 years in prison for this war crime. Topalovic was killed while trying to escape in 1993after he was arrested in Operation Trebevic II, an operation by police and military forces organized by the then Presidency of RBiH, the Ministry of Internal Affairsof RbiH, and the RBiH Army.
