IVANIŠEVIĆ: THE MASSACRE IN VILLAGES OF BRATUNAC UNPUNISHED, ORIĆ WALKS FREELY IN PODRINJE

BIJELJINA, JULY 2 /SRNA/ - The massacre of Serb civilians in the Bratunac villages of Bjelovac, Sikirić and Loznička Rijeka on December 14, 1992 was a prelude to the horrific massacre in Kravica on Christmas Day 1993, but the world, despite all the evidence, remained silent on the Serb victims, and Naser Orić, who led the bloody party, walks freely in Podrinje, the director of the Institute for the Research of Serb Suffering in the 20th Century Milivoje Ivanišević told SRNA.

He said that the UN on July 10, 1993 was already informed about the crimes against Serbs in these Podrinje villages in the memo delivered by the Government of Serbia and the Government of Yugoslavia, but nobody was interested in truth.

Ivanišević said that in the time of the massacre, in which 68 civilians were killed, he was in Bratunac and that no one will ever forget the bloody 14th of December 31 years ago.

"People were like stumps, put in the truck and the tractor trailer. That is how they were driven to Bratunac. It was a horrible massacre of the civilian population in Serbian villages in the border area towards Serbia," said Ivanišević.

He said that afterwards, the dead Serb civilians were transferred to the Health Centre in Bratunac.

"There were two sisters and I was told that one of them was slaughteres. They put them in the Health Centre. It was horrible. Gordana and Snježana from Bjelovac were killed. I think their last name was Matić. One could not step while avoiding the blood," said Ivanišević in a statement published in the book "Testimony about the Unpunished Crime against Serbs in Middle Podrinje".

Ivanišević, who wrote about the massacre in his book "The Chronicles of our Graveyard," said that during the days of the massacre, the RTRS and the Japanese television were in Bratunac and there were recordings of the victims and irrefutable evidence against the criminals.

"I'm glad that there are some young people who work on it. As long as we remember it and write about it, the crime will not be forgotten," said Ivanišević.

In the dawn of December 14, 1992, units of the 28th Division of the so-called Army of BiH from Srebrnica, under the command of Naser Orić, attacked Bjelovac and killed 68 Serbs from Sikirić and Loznička Rijeka in just few hours. They burned 350 Serbian houses and other facilities, and stole everything – including the cattle, food and agricultural machines – and taken to Srebrenica.

In the yard of the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah in Bjelovac, every year in mid-December, a memorial service is held for 109 Serbs from Bjelovac and the neighboring Serb villages of Sikirić and Loznička Rijeka, of whom 68 were killed on December 14, 1992, in an attack by Muslim forces from Srebrenica and surrounding villages. /to be continued/