POPOVIĆ: MY FATHER AND GRANDFATHER WERE KILLED ON THE PETROVAC ROAD; I REMEMBER AND BEAR WITNESS

BELGRADE, AUGUST 2 /SRNA/ – Aleksandra Popović was a three-and-a-half-year-old girl in the refugee convoy that was bombed by Croatian aircraft on the Petrovac Road 31 years ago, when her father Mirko /33/ and grandfather Branko /72/ were killed, while she, her brother Savo, and their mother Vedrana, who was nine months pregnant, were wounded by shrapnel.

Popović told SRNA that she has never travelled the Petrovac Road since August 7, 1995, but that her memories remain vivid and that she began speaking about them as early as preschool age.

"According to psychologists, it may be impossible for me to remember those events because I was only three and a half years old. However, based precisely on my memories and the first statement I gave to journalists, my grandfather's and father's remains were found in that car six years later. DNA testing confirmed their identities, and the state paid for their remains to be transported and buried in Barajevo," said Aleksandra Popović, née Stijelja.

She said she would never forget her father tying the laces of her shoes before they left their village of Zagrad near Benkovac, or the fear and anxiety she sensed in him as he told the family to get ready because they were leaving.

"After that, I remember sitting on my mother's lap. I remember being happy when I saw airplanes through an opening in the truck's tarpaulin, and my grandmother Sava shielding my eyes. Then the truck carrying women, I don't remember there being any men except my brother Savo, stopped, and all I remember is screaming," Aleksandra recalled.

She said her brother Savo was struck by shrapnel in the ear, she was wounded in the hand, and their mother was hit in the arm with which she was holding her.

"My mother was covered in blood, and she was in the ninth month of pregnancy," Popović said.

She adds she does not know who took her out of the truck, but she remembers seeing the car in which her father and grandfather had been killed.

"My godmother told me that after the shelling we all scattered across a meadow, and that I mistook a man standing in front of us for my father and called out to him. Everyone present froze because they knew he was gone," she said.

Aleksandra, her brother and their mother were treated in hospital after the attack and then, as refugees, went to Ilok, from where her mother Vedrana /26/ was admitted for childbirth.

"My mother gave birth on August 29, while the bombing on the Petrovac Road happened on August 7. She gave birth to our sister Tanja, then fell into a coma and died on August 31," Aleksandra recounted.

She said her mother's medical report stated that both the pregnancy and the delivery had been normal, adding that an autopsy was requested after the birth.

After losing their mother, she says, she and her siblings were raised by their uncle and aunt in Barajevo. They never stopped talking about the tragedy or gave up the fight for truth and justice.

My brother Savo and my aunt testified at the trial of the Croatian pilots over the Petrovac Road attack. Duško Ivaneža, who was in the car with my father and grandfather, also testified," she said.

Popović stressed that her statement about the horrific crime on the Petrovac Road was presented as the final piece of evidence in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague as part of the Serb legal team's counterclaim for genocide against Croatia.

"People were very afraid to speak back then. That fear still exists today. I am ready to speak so that neither the Petrovac Road, nor Operation Storm, nor our loved ones are ever forgotten," she said.