BROD OBSERVES DAY OF MOURNING AS MILJA ZEČEVIĆ IS TO BE BURIED TODAY

BROD, NOVEMBER 9 /SRNA/ – Milja Zečević, a heroine whose three sons and husband were killed before her eyes in Sijekovac near Brod in March 1992, will be buried today in Gornji Smrtići near Prnjavor.

Brod has declared a day of mourning to mark the death of Milja Zečević, a heroic mother.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. at the town cemetery in Brod, followed by the burial at 1 p.m. in Gornji Smrtići near Prnjavor, where the remains of her sons and husband are buried. Her fourth son, who survived the massacre in Sijekovac, is also buried there.

Milja Zečević died on Saturday, November 7, aged 94. She died in the yard of her house, on the very spot where members of the Croatian Defense Council /HVO/, the Croatian Army and paramilitary units had killed her sons and husband.

Top Republika Srpska officials sent telegrams of condolence.

Brod Mayor Milan Zečević said Milja Zečević's life story was a wound for the whole of Brod.

In earlier testimony to the Republika Srpska Memorial Center, Milja Zečević said a group of men with stockings over their faces had entered their yard on March 26, 1992.

"The attackers beat my husband and three sons one after another and finally executed them," she said at the time.

She testified that she had watched her eldest son being killed by the water fountain, her middle son at the gate and her youngest in the yard. She believed the killers were their neighbors because they wore stockings over their faces.

"They beat them one by one, questioned them and then beat them again. I was there. After they killed them, they drove me away down the road, and I went all the way to Smrtići," she said.

Milja Zečević had been awarded the Order of Miloš Obilić.