At the Bratunac cemetery, a memorial service was held for 3,267 Serbian civilians and soldiers from central Podrinje who were killed in the last war, and wreaths and flowers were laid at the Memorial Cross.
On behalf of the Republika Srpska, the President of the Republika Srpska Siniša Karan, the President of the National Assembly Nenad Stevanić, and the Prime Minister Savo Minić laid the wreath.
Flowers were also laid on the Memorial Cross by Pastor Mark Burns, adviser on spiritual matters to US President Donald Trump, as well as Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Kalabuhov.
The wreath was also laid by the delegation of Serbia, which included several ministers.
After the memorial service, which was attended by thousands of citizens, and the laying of wreaths, the program marking 34 years since the suffering of the Serbs from the central Podrinje was continued with the official’s address.
The President of Republika Srpska Siniša Karan said that this is a place where the country is not silent but witnesses and remembers more than words can express.
“We come here with respect, not only to remember but to renew our vow to those who left and to the generations that come after us. That vow begins with the 3,267 martyred Serbs,” said Karan, addressing the crowd in Bratunac.
According to him, what happened in central Podrinje and Birč from 1992 to 1995 was the painful aging of Serbs.
“Continuous and systematic extermination, which left devastation, pain and scars that have not healed even to this day,” he said.
“You don’t come to Bratunac for an ordinary gathering, you come to worship the shadows of the 3,267 innocent Serbs who died in the middle of Podrinje and Birče and to confirm that they are not forgotten, said Anđa Đukanović, the daughter of the murdered Anđelko Mlađenović, today.
“We are here today so that no name is forgotten. Let’s not forget the children who didn’t get to grow up. The mothers who didn’t get to see their sons. The fathers who failed to protect their families. And all those who wanted only one thing – to live on their age-old hearth”, she emphasized in her speech in Bratunac.
The name of this year’s memorial program is “You don’t call to Bratunac, you go to Bratunac”.
Court proceedings
In November 2018, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina legally acquitted Naser Orić, the former commander of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Sabahudin Muhić, of the charges that they killed three prisoners of Serbian nationality in the towns of Zalazje, Lolići and Kunjerac (Srebrenica municipality) in 1992.
The procedure was initiated after Naser Orić was arrested in Switzerland in 2015 on the warrant of Serbia, which demanded his extradition for the aforementioned crimes.
By the way, in 2008, Naser Orić was legally acquitted before the Hague Tribunal, which charged him with crimes against Serbs near Srebrenica committed from 1992-1993. year. The council thereby changed the first-instance verdict, pronounced in the summer of 2006, by which Orić was found guilty of not preventing crimes against Serbs, on the basis of which he was sentenced to two years in prison.
The appellate panel concluded that the first-instance judges made a mistake when they found Orić guilty, without first determining who exactly committed the crimes, whether the perpetrators were subordinate to Orić and whether he knew about the crimes.
