PAINFUL 33 YEARS SINCE THE MASSACRE OF SERB CHILDREN AND CIVILIANS IN JOŠANICA

FOČA, DECEMBER 14 /SRNA/ – Jošanica is a place of great pain and suffering, where on St. Nicholas Day in 1992, 56 residents were brutally killed and about ten hamlets were erased from the face of the earth, it was emphasized today during the commemoration marking 33 years since this horrific crime committed by Muslim forces.

The victims were killed in an extremely cruel manner. The youngest victim was two-year-old Danka Tanović; among the murdered were seven-year-old Dražen and his ten-year-old sister Dragana. The oldest victim was ninety-year-old Rade Pljevaljčić.

As was stated today, Jošanica is also a place of hope for resurrection, as confirmed by baptisms ceremony held in the memorial Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, built in memory of the 56 Jošanica martyrs who perished on St. Nicholas Day 33 years ago.

Around ten hamlets of Upper Jošanica were wiped off the map on that bloody St. Nicholas Day, as houses and outbuildings were burned and even fruit trees were cut down.

A memorial service for 73 residents of Jošanica who perished in the Defensive–Patriotic War, including the 56 brutally murdered on St. Nicholas Day in 1992, was held at the monument in the Jošanica village of Hodžići, near the church.

The brutal crime committed by the Muslim army from Goražde on a day when Serb families should have been breaking their slava bread, was recalled by retired medical worker Slavko Đorđević, who received the victims at the Foča hospital.

Retired medic Slavko Đorđević, who received the victims in the hospital in Foča, recalled the brutal crime by the Muslim army from Goražde, committed on the day when Serb families were supposed to break the Slavic cake.

His photographs of massacred children, old men and women testify to the brutality of the crime.

"When I picked up a little girl to take her picture, the brain was left in my hand as much as the skull was crushed. Among the dead, I saw a sister and a brother-in-law with wounds in their necks, how I survived I still don't understand to this day," said Đorđević.

He adds that he neither cried nor spoke at that time, but withdrew and has been suffering from severe diabetes for 33 years since that day.

As a human being and a medic, I cannot understand that such a crime can be done to people, if they were killed by a bullet it would not be so sad, but if they were cut into pieces, it is unbelievable," said 81-year-old Đorđević, who testified in the trial before the Court of BiH.

The head of the Foča War Veterans Organisation, Ljubomir Dostić, says that only a monstrous human mind could have devised and carried out such a crime.

He pointed out that the Jošanica victims must not be forgotten, because that would mean they would be killed once again.

"Young people who come here should know what happened and that these memorials should be a reminder for them in the future," said Dostić.

In February last year, the trial of 13 commanders and members of the so-called Army of BiH, who were accused of ordering and carrying out the killing of Serb civilians in Jošanica, began in the Court of BiH.

The head of the War Veterans Organisation, Radan Ostojić, pointed out that there may be justice for other peoples in BiH, but not for Serbs.

"A large number of us are increasingly losing hope that there will ever be justice. Those who committed the crime will certainly not escape the hand of God's justice, and our obligation is to persistently come here and insist that the Prosecutor's Office and the Court of BiH punish the criminals who killed the Jošanica Serbs," Ostojić said.

The mayor of the municipality, Milan Vukadinović, announced the construction of a memorial centre in the former elementary school in the village of Škobalji in Jošanič, near the church.

The memorial service was organised by the War Veterans Organisation Foča, and in addition to relatives of the deceased, numerous delegations of municipal and republican institutions and associations laid flowers and lit candles.