PHOTOGRAPHS OF SERB VICTIMS SERVE AS A REMINDER OF CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST SERBS

BRATUNAC, JULY 1 /SRNA/ - Photographs of 450 Serbs killed in the municipalities of Bratunac and Srebrenica were displayed this evening along the road from Bratunac to Srebrenica as a reminder that crimes were committed against Serb civilians in the area.

The photographs were placed by members of the Associations of Families of Captured and Killed Soldiers and Missing Serb civilians from Bratunac and Srebrenica. They were joined by Isidora Graorac, president of the organization at the republic level, and Viktor Nuždić, Acting Director of the Republika Srpska Center for Research on War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons. Nuždić said he had come to support efforts to prove the truth about the suffering of the Serb people, stressing that the world should hear that truth and show respect for all victims. “Serbs were killed on their own doorsteps, yet the ICTY and the judiciary of BiH failed to seize the opportunity they had to prosecute those responsible and contribute to reconciliation. It is absurd that only four perpetrators have been convicted for the numerous mass crimes committed by Muslim forces in the villages of the Middle Podrinje region in 1992 and 1993,” Nuždić said. Graorac said that the photographs of the slain Serbs are being displayed again this year so that those coming to Srebrenica in the coming days to pay tribute only to the victims from one side of the conflic /the Bosniak side/ in the war in BiH can finally see and understand that members of the other people were also killed there, and that the majority of the 3,267 Serb victims in this region were civilians. “The whole world must know about the Serb victims, most of them civilians, women, children and the elderly. We are supporting these people, who are under tremendous pressure but have not given up the fight to bring to light the truth about Serb suffering,” Graorac said. She said the photographs testify that these people existed, that they had names and identities, but that no one has been prosecuted for their deaths. Branimir Kojić, President of the Organization of Families of Captured and Killed Soldiers and Missing Civilians of Srebrenica, said that this is the path of the Serb cry and a message to everyone who passes by to once again see the truth about the great suffering of the Serb people. He thanked the institutions of Republika Srpska for their support. Kojić said that photographs of 450 Serbs killed in Srebrenica and Bratunac have been displayed, adding that in the coming period they will collect additional photographs of Serb victims from all municipalities in the Birač region, as Muslim forces burned and destroyed everything during attacks on Serb villages. “We also put up banners with photographs of killed Serbs. Vehid Dedić objected to this, and he is a person who publicly boasted that he was a member of the notorious ‘El Mujahid’ unit and that he would have slaughtered Serb children if he had had the opportunity,” Kojić said. He said that those who ignore and neglect Serb victims, as well as the entire world, should see the truth that Western media and officials are hiding from their citizens. “The truth is that in this area during the last war in BiH, proportionally more Serbs were killed than Bosniaks, relative to the number of people who lived here before the war,” Kojić explained. He said that displaying photographs of the victims is not a provocation, but rather a way of pointing to injustice carried out by international actors and the judiciary of BiH, which ignore Serb victims and thereby conceal crimes, or perpetrators from Muslim ranks who are presented in the West as victims. The photographs of Serb victims will remain on display until Petrovdan /St. Peter’s Day/, marking the beginning of the commemoration of 34 years since the major suffering of Serbs in the Srebrenica and Bratunac area on Petrovdan in 1992, when 69 Serb civilians and soldiers were killed in a single day, while 22 soldiers were taken prisoner, of whom ten have not yet been found. More than three decades since the suffering of Serbs in the Middle Podrinje and Birač regions will be commemorated in Bratunac on Saturday, July 4. A memorial service for 3,267 Serbs killed in Middle Podrinje and Birač from 1992 to 1995 will be held by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Porfirije.