BELGRADE, FEBRUARY 27 (ONASA-FoNet) – On this day, 31 years ago, at the train station in Štrpci (BiH), members of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) took out 20 passengers and then killed them, and the families of the victims are still waiting for justice before by the judiciary of Serbia, they are looking for the remains and they fail to achieve the status of civilian victims of the war, all non-governmental organizations announced.
In a joint statement by the Fund for Humanitarian Law, the Sandžak Committee for Democracy, Women in Black and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, it is recalled that on February 27, 1993, members of the VRS took 19 citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia out of a train traveling on the Belgrade-Bar route. and one N.N. person and then killed them.
The victims of crimes in Štrpci are Esad Kapetanović, Iljaz Ličina, Fehim Bakija, Šećo Softić, Rifat Husović, Halil Zupčević, Senad Đečević, Jusuf Rastoder, Ismet Babačić, Tomo Buzov, Adem Alomerović, Muhedin Hanić, Safet Preljević, Džafer Topuzović, Rasim Ćorić, Fikret Memović, Fevzija Zeković, Nijazim Kajević, Zvjezdan Zuličić and one unknown person.
The oldest victim was 59, and the youngest 16.
To date, the remains of only four victims have been found.
The body of Halil Zupčević was found at the end of 2009, and the remains of Rasim Ćorić, Jusuf Rastoder and Iljaz Ličina were found in Lake Perućac in 2010.
As stated, the families of the victims, most of whom are citizens of Serbia, are not recognized as civilian victims of the war in Serbia, which would enable them to acknowledge the suffering they suffered and receive modest material support, and the reason is the discriminatory provisions of the Law on Veterans and Disability Protection.
10 people were convicted of the crime in Štrpci before the courts in the region, while the proceedings that have been conducted since 2019 before the High Court in Belgrade were brought back to the beginning by last year’s decision of the Court of Appeal in Belgrade. The process started again in January.
No proceedings were taken against the representatives of the army, police and civil authorities in Serbia, who did not prevent the abduction of civilians from the train, even though, as stated, they were informed of the planned action.
Before the courts in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10 people were convicted for the crime in Štrpci.
In 2009, the local self-government in Prijepolje erected a memorial dedicated to the nine killed from Prijepolje.
In 2016, the municipality of Novi Beograd erected a memorial plaque to Tomi Buzova, on the building in Milutina Milankovića Street where he lived, without specifying the circumstances in which he died.
That memorial plaque was removed at the end of December 2022 by unknown persons, but it was returned in April 2023 at the initiative of a neighbor.
The announcement indicates that the victims of this crime, as well as other non-Serb victims of armed conflicts in the 1990s, remain invisible in memorialization practices at the state level.