Ljubić: We need a day of mourning at the state level too

The Government of the Federation of BiH declared July 20th a Day of Mourning in the Federation of BiH, as a sign of remembrance for the 284 murdered victims from Prijedor, whose bodies were found mostly in the mass grave Tomašica, and who will be buried on Sunday, writes the Patria News Agency.

However, Damir Ljubić, the state Minister for Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, told the Patria News Agency that it would be good if Bosnia and Herzegovina also had a day of mourning, when citizens would remember all the victims who perished during the conflict in BiH, on all three sides. It doesn't have to be, Ljubić reminds, the day on which victims on one of the sides perished; a neutral date can be found and declared a day of mourning and remembrance for all murdered victims.

Unfortunately, Ljubić believes, such an agreement at the state level is not yet possible.

- It is still not possible to reach an agreement on simple issues like celebrating religious holidays and the like, so it is not realistic to expect an agreement on more difficult issues like this - Ljubić told Patria.

A study on the number of victims, completed in 2007, states that between 100,000 and 110,000 victims perished during the aggression against BiH. By ethnicity, around 65,000 victims were Bosniaks, 25,000 were Serbs, and around 7,500 were Croats. The majority of Serbian (20,690) and Croatian (5,719) victims were soldiers, while among Bosniaks, the majority were civilians (33,403).

By place of death, the most victims were in the Drina River valley, where around 28,000 people were killed or died, or 30% of all victims of the aggression, while Sarajevo is in second place with 14,656 victims. However, these figures are often subject to review, and alongside them, other data appear that speak of the number of people killed during the aggression against BiH, writes Patria.