ŠEHOVAC: POFALIĆI ATTACK REMAINS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CRIMES AGAINST SERBS, STILL WITHOUT JUSTICE

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, 15 MAY /SRNA/ – Sarajevo-Romanija Region Veterans' Organizations Coordinator Goran Šehovac stated that the crime against Serb civilians in the Sarajevo neighborhood of Pofalići was one of the biggest crimes committed in the city, yet no one has been held accountable for it, just as for many other crimes.

He reminded that the pogrom against Serbs in Pofalići was carried out at the very beginning of the war, in the early morning hours of May 16, 1992, and that members of Muslim paramilitary units justified the attack by claiming they had targeted "some Serb army".

"The crime in Dobrovoljačka Street was committed on May 2 and 3 that year, after which the JNA army left Sarajevo. That means there was no military presence left in Sarajevo", Šehovac stated.

He stressed that there were no armed military forces in Pofalići, but rather Serb civilians who owned homes and property there, since that part of the city had traditionally had a majority Serb population.

"They deliberately attacked Pofalići in order to expel or kill Serb civilians. The Serbs never returned to this neighborhood, nor can they return", Šehovac emphasized.

He reminded that the crimes were committed by members of the Sandžak Brigade, who, he said, still live in the neighborhood today, in Serb homes whose owners were expelled or killed during the war.

Šehovac noted that on June 5, 2009, the Republika Srpska Interior Ministry filed a report against 51 individuals for war crimes committed against more than 200 Serb civilians in the neighborhood, but that no one has been prosecuted since then.

"So much for BiH, so much for civic Sarajevo, where even the few Serbs left, mostly elderly residents with nowhere else to go, are slowly disappearing", he said.

Šehovac assessed that prosecutors' offices and courts in BiH are doing nothing except receiving high salaries.

"Their only goal is to convict Serbs, while Muslim war criminals who walk freely in Sarajevo or the Croat-Muslim Federation continue to walk free. No one arrests them and no one questions them", Šehovac said.

During the general attack by Muslim units on the Sarajevo neighborhood of Pofalići on May 16, 1992, around 200 Serb civilians were killed, while Serb property was looted and burned alongside the killings and expulsions.

Thirty-four years ago today, Muslim paramilitary units carried out a broad and systematic attack against the Serbian population in the Gornji Pofalići neighborhood, during which Serbs were captured, beaten, taken to camps or killed on their doorsteps.