Today, Bratunac marks the anniversary of the suffering of the Serbian population during the war years of the 1990s in the areas of Srebrenica, Bratunac, the Middle Drina region, and the municipalities of the Birač region.
By decision of the Government of Republika Srpska (RS), a Day of Mourning has been declared in the territory of that entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), on the occasion of the crimes against Serbs in the central Podrinje and Birč from 1992 to 1995.
According to data from the RS, 3.267 people were killed in the Podrinje region during this period.
At the rally and commemoration for the victims in Bratunac, in eastern BiH, it was announced that delegations from the RS and Serbia entities would be present.
What was happening in the Middle Drina?
In eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the villages of Zalazje and Sase, Biljača and Zagoni in the municipality of Bratunac, on July 12, 92, 69 soldiers and civilians of Serbian nationality were killed, while 22 Serbs also went missing.
Some of their remains were found in a mass grave on June 10, 2010, and the ten missing have not yet been found.
No one was held accountable for the murders of Serbs in Podrinje before a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina or in The Hague.
In November 2018, the Court of BiH finally acquitted the former commander of the BiH Army in Srebrenica, Naser Orić, and his comrade Sabahudin Muhić of charges that they killed three prisoners of Serb nationality in the towns of Zalazje, Lolići, and Kunjerac (Srebrenica municipality) in 1992.
Orić was previously, in 2008, acquitted by a final verdict before the Hague Tribunal, which charged him with crimes against Serbs in Srebrenica committed in 1992 and 1993.
The Council thereby changed the first-instance verdict, pronounced in the summer of 2006, by which Orić was found guilty of not preventing crimes against Serbs, on the basis of which he was sentenced to two years in prison.
The Appellate Chamber concluded that the first-instance judges erred in finding him guilty, without first establishing who exactly committed the crimes, whether the perpetrators were subordinate to Orić, and whether he knew about the crimes.
The Day of Mourning in the RS was declared the day after the Government of the Federation of BiH declared July 11th a Day of Mourning in that BiH entity, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica.
The leaders of Serbia and Republika Srpska deny that genocide was committed in Srebrenica in July 1995, in which members of the Republika Srpska Army killed more than 8.000 men and boys and expelled more than 25.000 women, children and the elderly.
Bonus video:
