INCENSE, ROSES AND CANDLES AT THE SITE OF MURDER OF 54 YOUNG MEN

TUZLA, MAY 15 /SRNA/ – Memorial service was held today for the victims of the crime with candles lit and roses laid at Brčanska Malta in Tuzla, where on May 15, 1992, 54 young men were brutally killed in an attack on a JNA convoy that was withdrawing under a previously agreed peaceful arrangement.

Participants of the commemorative gathering walked peacefully through Brčanska Malta, while the site was secured by a strong police presence. Among those present were family members of the victims, who have been waiting for justice for 34 years, as well as survivors of the Tuzla Convoy incident. Also attending were representatives of Republika Srpska, including envoy of the president Bojan Savić, envoy of the Serb BiH Presidency member Boško Tomić, as well as Minister of Labour, War Veterans and Disabled Persons Protection Radan Ostojić and Minister of Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education Draga Mastilović. Ostojić stated that law and justice are an illusion when Serbs are the victims. He asked why a large number of police officers were needed to secure the site of the killing of 54 JNA soldiers in Tuzla. "As if we had come to Tehran. There are no indications that we are free or welcome. I believe it would be better if one day both Republika Srpska and the FBiH were free, that we cooperate and never go to war again," Ostojić said. Survivor of the Tuzla Convoy Slavko Novaković called on the authorities to prosecute the crime. "The cowardly attack on JNA members was the introduction to the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Tuzla, from which more than 80,000 Serbs were expelled," Novaković said. Participants arrived in Tuzla in five buses, four of which came from Bijeljina and one from Zvornik. On May 15, 1992, Muslim paramilitary forces attacked a JNA convoy in Tuzla which, based on a previously reached agreement, was supposed to leave the Tuzla barracks. In the attack, 51 persons were killed, three more later died from their injuries, while 78 persons were wounded.