Day of the reintegration of Grbavica, which was destroyed beyond recognition

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - On this day in 1996, one of Sarajevo's largest neighborhoods, Grbavica, was reintegrated after being under aggressor occupation for four years, writes the BiH news agency Patria. During the aggression against BiH, some of the most horrific crimes during the siege of Sarajevo were committed in the Grbavica neighborhood. From that period, the criminal Veselin Vlahović Batko is remembered, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of March 2013 for crimes he committed in Grbavica against the non-Serb population, i.e., all those people who tried to resist him in any way.

The monster from Grbavica, as Vlahović is called, also killed the hero Goran Čengić, a well-known handball player for Bosna Sarajevo, who tried to save his neighbor Dr. Husnija Ćerimagić, a Sarajevo university professor, whom the monster Vlahović also killed.

The date of the reintegration of Grbavica is significant for all citizens of Sarajevo, as Grbavica was returned to them after four years of war. Upon returning to Grbavica, citizens found a catastrophic state, the destruction of one of Sarajevo's symbols, the Grbavica stadium, and the streets were unrecognizable. 

FK Željezničar reminded today that many players of that club lived in that neighborhood, and some greats took their first football steps there.

"After the start of the war in Sarajevo in April 1992 and the siege, which lasted a full 1,425 days, this neighborhood represented one of the symbols of the horrors that this city went through during that period. Songs have been written about it, films have been made, and world news agencies have always paid great attention to the unnatural division of the city during the war. The numerous suffering of people must certainly not go unmentioned, and all fans are further hurt by the events of May 4, 1992, when our stadium was set on fire. In that fire, the recognizable wooden stand on the west side, as well as numerous souvenirs, trophies, and valuable documentation, also disappeared forever," FK Željezničar reminds.