Lendo at anniversary of crimes in Biljani, nearly 260 Bosniaks killed in one day

(Patria) - FBiH Vice President Refik Lendo attended today the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the suffering of Bosniaks in Biljani near Ključ. Around 260 Bosniaks were killed at that time, including children, women, and the elderly. The oldest victim was 85-year-old Bećo Ćehić, while the youngest was four-month-old baby Amila Džaferagić.

The massacre in Biljani represents one of the most horrific war crimes committed in the Bosnian Krajina region. In June and July 1992, most of the Bosniak population was killed, and houses and religious buildings were set on fire. After killing them, the perpetrators of the crime dumped the bodies in distant and hidden mass graves, with the aim of them never being found and to conceal the committed crimes.

The mass graves in which the victims of the Biljani massacre were found were mostly discovered immediately after the war, specifically in late 1995 and during 1996. According to data from the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first discovered mass grave named Crvena zemlja I was found in November 1995, from which sixteen victims were exhumed. A year later, an exhumation was carried out from the Crvena zemlja II grave, where sixteen victims were also found.

The largest mass grave is the Lanište I pit, from which 188 victims were exhumed between October 5 and November 15, 1996. In the years that followed, bodies were regularly found in smaller and individual graves, in forests, or abandoned and burned buildings. In the Biljani area, 34 individual graves were found, from which 34 bodies were exhumed.

"These were committed by neighbors. And that is why we must be bold and brave, but we must never again believe that the international community or someone else will bring us peace and security and the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We must defend this country ourselves, just as we defended it in 1992. We must draw experience from that struggle, and today, in peace, invite our neighbors, Serbs and Croats, to build a country, but a country in which we will all be safe and secure, and for such a crime to never happen again," Lendo stated.

The attack on the village of Biljani began in the early morning hours of July 10, 1992, and was led by the 17th Light Infantry Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in cooperation with reserve and active police officers from the Police Department in Sanica.