DEFENSE OF THE NORTHWESTERN BORDERS - A FATEFUL VICTORY

NOVI GRAD, SEPTEMBER 18 /SRNA/ - The people of Novi Grad marked today the 30th anniversary of the fateful victory over the Croatian Army, which carried out aggression against the municipality of Novi Grad and the northwestern borders of Republika Srpska.

On this occasion, a memorial service was held and wreaths were laid at the central memorial to fallen Serb fighters in Novi Grad, and later at the memorial in Tunjica, where the largest number of civilians were killed in the Croatian Army attack.

The wartime commander of the First Battalion of the Novi Grad Brigade, Momir Kovačević, said that on September 18, 1995, the municipalities of Novi Grad, Kostajnica, and Kozarska Dubica were attacked by elite units of the Croatian Army, and that the units of the Republika Srpska Army fought against an enemy ten times larger in number.

"Those were fateful days. The attack of the Croatian Army on Novi Grad happened at a time when the Novi Grad Brigade was also under attack from the Fifth Corps of the Army of BiH on the other side," Kovačević recalled.

According to him, alongside the determination of the Republika Srpska Army and the civilian population to defend their homes, the prior preparation of the defense and the deployment of forces and material-technical resources on strategic positions played a significant role.

Kovačević said that in the defense against the attack of the Croatian Army, and later against the Fifth Corps of the Army of BiH, 115 people were killed or wounded within ten days in the area of this municipality.

Mayor Miroslav Drljača said that nothing that happened there was accidental, but rather that Western powers had given it the green light.

"The way the Croatian Army entered the territory of Republika Srpska and massacred the civilian population clearly shows that they were prepared for anything," Drljača emphasized.

Wreaths were laid at the memorials by delegations of families of the fallen, the Ministry of Labor, War Veterans and Disabled Persons Protection, the Organization of Captured and Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians, the Organization of the Republika Srpska Army Commanding Officers, the Advisor to the President of Republika Srpska Mira Zgonjanin, the Veterans’ Organizations, the Municipality of Novi Grad, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska, the Third Infantry Republika Srpska Regiment, and citizens.

The commemoration of 30 years since the defense of the western borders of Republika Srpska in Novi Grad began last night with the screening of the film Typhoon from Kozara by Nedeljko Lajšić, depicting the defense of Novi Grad, Kostajnica, and Kozarska Dubica.

The attack of the Croatian Army on the municipality of Novi Grad began on September 18, 1995, at 9:25 a.m. During the two-day offensive, 57 people were killed - 37 civilians, 18 soldiers, and two policemen, and 17 civilians, three soldiers, and one member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were wounded.

On September 19, 1995, members of the Army of Republika Srpska successfully pushed the Croatian Army back across the Una River.

At the site where the largest number of civilians and soldiers were killed, in the settlement of Tunjica, where members of the Croatian forces crossed into the territory of the Novi Grad municipality, a memorial was erected and consecrated in 2010.