KARAN: USTASHAS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING – THEY KILLED PEOPLE, BUT NOT SOUL OF THE SERBIAN NATION

STARI BROD, MAY 31 /SRNA/ – Republika Srpska was founded on the Serbian people’s determination that crimes such as the one in Stari Brod on the Drina River must never happen again, said Siniša Karan, who attended the commemoration of the 83rd anniversary of the Ustasha massacre of Serbs in Stari Brod as the envoy of the President of Republika Srpska.

In his speech, Karan emphasized that this was one of the greatest individual atrocities committed as part of the genocide against the Serbian people by the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).

“The Ustashas knew exactly what they were doing. Their goal was to turn the Drina into a grave for the Serbian people, to erase the Serbian presence from this region forever. They carried out this plan with such unprecedented brutality that even after all these years, we are equally horrified by what happened at this place,” said Karan.

He reminded that while the people were tortured and killed here, the spirit of the nation was not.

“All these crimes went unpunished, and that hurts the most. That is why we are here today – to declare that we will never allow the crimes against Serbs to be forgotten. Republika Srpska was born from the resolve of the Serbian people that atrocities like this must never happen again,” Karan said.

State Secretary in the Government of Serbia, Đorđe Todorov, said that the long-standing concealment, cover-up, and relativization of these horrific events did not succeed, because the victims were not forgotten.

He emphasized that the Serb people will continue to fight for truth and justice, free from false heroes and idolatrous deceptions.

Mayor of the Municipality of Rogatica, Ninoslav Prelić, told attendees that they were standing in a place where words often fail, and only the soul speaks.

“Stari Brod is not just a geographical point but a sacred site of our memory, grief, and defiance. In the spring of 1942, over 6,000 of our compatriots perished here, and that crime remained silenced for decades,” Prelić noted.

He added that the voices of the victims were suppressed by the politics of oblivion, but the Serbian heart remembers. “Eight decades later, we are here to say – you are not forgotten,” Prelić stressed.

A commemoration was held in Stari Brod on the Drina near Višegrad to mark 83 years since the massacre of more than 6,000 Serbs from the Sarajevo-Romanija region, brutally murdered by the Ustasha regime under Jure Francetić.

The Ustaše killed over 6,000 Serbs from Sarajevo, Sokolac, Olovo, Kladanj, Rogatica, Han Pijesak, and Višegrad, who tried to cross the Drina River seeking refuge in Serbia. Some drowned in the river while fleeing.

The Ustashas attacked Serb civilians gathered on the riverbank, killing, torturing, and raping women, then throwing them into the river. Some jumped into the icy Drina themselves to escape the Ustasha’s knives.