SERBS IN ČEMERNO SLAUGHTERED, MASSACRED, PEELED

ČEMERNO, 8 JUNE /SRNA/ - Muslim and Croatian soldiers in an attack on the village of Čemerno near Ilijaš 34 years ago massacred Zdravko Damjanović, even peeling of his skin, testified Stjepanija Trifković from this village.

Trifković said that on June 10, 1992, at around five in the morning, Muslim and Croatian troops surrounded the village of Čemerno and launched an armed attack from all sides.

"My house was near the forest and the attackers did not approach it, fearing the village defenders, or rather assuming that they were in the forest next to my house. However, the attackers' bullets also hit my house and flew in through the windows, so my husband and I lay on the kitchen floor and were not allowed to move anywhere," Trifković testified.

She states that she saw many mutilated corpses, and she particularly emphasizes the atrocity against Damjanović, who was 27 years old at the time.

"Among the corpses I saw, the most heavily massacred was Damjanović, towards whom the Muslim-Croat soldiers were particularly brutal, because they peeled off his skin and cut him with knives all over his body," Trifković said.

In a statement given to the Basic Court in Ili̷dža on November 7, 1995, Petar Rašević stated that he saw Muslims kill 12 members of the defenders' cannon crew who were not even in action, and that among them he recognized Miro Pantić, whose ears had been cut off and other body parts had been massacred, Gojko Đurić, who was also massacred, Radomir Jevtić, Miloš Malešević, and Manojlo Đuka, but he could not remember the names of the others, according to the Atlas of Crimes Against Serbs in the Defense-Patriotic War, authored and published by the Republic Center for War Research, War Crimes, and the Search for Missing Persons.

"About ten meters away from this place, there was Dragan Damjanović's stable, which was on fire and in it we found the burned bodies of Braco Mirković and Ljubiša Lazendić, while the body of Miro Janković was half-burned," Rašević said.

According to his testimony, the body of Novo Cvjetković, butchered from ear to ear, was found not far from there.

"I walked towards my house and not far from it, in a field, up to 100 meters away, I came across the bodies of my relatives who had been killed, namely Đorđe Bunjevac, born in 1936, his wife Koviljka, born in 1938, their son Goran, about 25 years old, Đorđe's brother Rajko, about 40 years old, and Stana Rašević, my brother Rajko's wife, born in 1926," Rašević specified.

From there, he continues, we went to Milinko Tripković's house and nearby we found him and the bodies of the murdered Milinko Tripković, about 55 years old, his son Rajko, about 18 years old, Milinko's wife Janja, born in 1940, Milinko's sister Mirosava, about 65 years old, Mirosava's son Milan Binijevac, born in 1955, his wife Slavojka and Mirosava's other son Ranko Bunijevac, born in 1961. /to be continued/