The photo of Sabina Mujkić, a Bosniak from Žepa, from which she was expelled in 1995 before the onslaught of the Republika Srpska Army, as announced by the organizers, was displayed by mistake on the video wall in Prijedor during the commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the suffering of Serbs during the military operation “Storm”.
The original photo that was found behind the presidents of the RS and Serbia, Milorad Dodik and Aleksandar Vučić, while they were talking about the suffering of the Serbs in the “Storm” at this meeting, can be found at the link https://making-of.afp.com/un -ete-mortel, signed “Evacuation of women and children by French UNPROFOR soldiers from the Žepa enclave on July 26, 1995 after it was occupied by Serbian forces. (AFP / Joel Robin)“. The author’s work of the AFP photojournalist from Žepa Dodik also published on Twitter with a comment about the “joint criminal enterprise of the United States of America and Croatia” against the Serbian people.
In the meantime, the “Pozitiv” agency from Belgrade, which was in charge of preparing the multimedia content of the gathering in Prijedor, announced itself taking responsibility for the “unintentional mistake” and apologizing to all those who were hurt by it.
“The organizer of the event had nothing to do with this careless mistake, nor could he have foreseen this situation,” the Belgrade agency stated, adding that they used the wrong photo in the creation of the material, and that it was a serious omission for which there is no justification.
However, what is less talked about is the fact that certain Serbian media often use the same photo as an illustration of the suffering of Serbs in the “Storm”.
On the Internet, it is possible to find three-year-old articles by Serbian media that illustrated the crimes against Serbs with the controversial photo of Sabina Mujkić and her children expelled from Žepa after the Serbian conquest of this enclave in eastern Bosnia in 1995.
This is not an isolated example of misuse of photos in the media and misleading the public. One such case led last year to the new Ministry of Defense of Russia sending a protest to the military attaché of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Moscow, due to alleged photo evidence of the participation of 167 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina in fighting on the side of Ukraine against Russian military forces. The note of protest was sent after the pro-Russian Telegram channel published a photo of members of the airsoft club B-Unit from Živinice, claiming that they are BiH mercenaries on the Ukrainian battlefield.
