SARAJEVO, FEBRUARY 4 (ONASA) – The delegation of Sarajevo Canton, led by the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Zejna Avdić, today laid flowers and paid tribute to the massacre site in St. Oslobodilaca Sarajeva behind no. 3, in the Dobrinja neighborhood. In that place, 30 years ago, nine of our fellow citizens were killed, while 16 of them were seriously and lightly wounded. On that fateful day, the following died: Saida Baličevac, Osman Hebibović, Emin Kolar, Enver Mustagrudić, Muškija Pribinja, Mirsad Spahić, Selma Spahić, Aiša Šito and Jadranka Tenžera.
In addition to the Sarajevo Canton delegation, the commemoration was attended by members of the families of those killed, as well as delegations from the city and municipal level, representatives of the victims’ association, students of Dobrinja Gymnasium and “Ćamil Sijarić” Elementary School.
Addressing the audience, Avdić reminded that UNPROFOR experts confirmed that these shells were fired from the position of the Sarajevo-Romania Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska from the Lukavica settlement, more precisely from the Energoinvest building complex. As she said, immediately after their announcement, NATO planes flew over the mentioned positions, which, ironically, caused a more neutral UNPROFOR report the next day, when the massacre at Markale was committed.
As she added, we should remember the thousand-day siege of Sarajevo, in which its citizens were exposed to great suffering when they were hungry, thirsty, frozen…
“And as if that wasn’t enough, constant shelling and sniper shots from the aggressor positions killed more than 12,000 citizens of Sarajevo, including 1,601 children. I do not recognize other divisions among people, except good and bad, but I feel the need to mention that the enemy’s artillery did not choose age, sex, religion, or nationality. Everyone who lived in Sarajevo at that time was a daily live target of the Army of Republika Srpska”, said Avdić.
Recalling the verdicts for the crimes committed in Sarajevo, she said that it is too little to condemn a few people only for the suffering of all the citizens of Sarajevo during the four years of siege, let alone for more than 12 thousand killed citizens and children, and more than 60,000 wounded.
“However, regardless of the past, our future must be built on the equality of all peoples and citizens. We must persist in the ideas on which Bosnia and Herzegovina can and must survive, namely the idea of coexistence, mutual respect and tolerance. And for that to happen, justice must be served and the perpetrators of those terrible crimes, including the one we are commemorating today, must be adequately punished,” concluded Avdić.
President of the Association of Parents of Murdered Children of Besieged Sarajevo 1992-1995, Fikret Grabovica pointed out today that the criminals did not choose the place or the time to kill the innocent citizens of Sarajevo.
“This is confirmed by the fact that the citizens here were in line to receive humanitarian aid. Also, in many other places, crimes were committed against innocent citizens while performing their daily needs. The message from this place is that we must not forget it, that we should nurture the culture of memory, especially for the sake of young people, so that they know what happened in the 1990s during the siege of the city,” said Grabovica.
General Secretary of the Union of Civilian War Victims KS Muzafer Teskeredžić emphasized that the culture of memory is very important, that what happened during the aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina must not be forgotten, both for the sake of the victims and to prevent it from happening again.
Derviš Šito, whose wife was killed in this massacre, said today that 30 years later he is thinking about that event, and that such crimes must not be forgotten.