Six victims buried at Veljaci cemetery, the youngest a six-month-old baby Almera

(Patria) - The farewell ceremony for the mortal remains of five victims of Bosniak nationality, killed in the Bratunac area during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, was held today in front of the Memorial Center in Tuzla. Another coffin, the sixth victim, with the mortal remains of Hanija Čivić, will be joined tomorrow, at the collective funeral prayer.

After more than three decades, the victims will find their final resting place in the Memorial Complex and martyr cemetery "Veljaci" in Bratunac, where the collective funeral prayer will be held tomorrow.

Among the killed is baby Almera Paraganlija, the youngest victim of this year's collective funeral prayer, who was only six months old when she, along with her mother Zineta Paraganlija, was brutally killed in May 1992. Their story is deeply moving – the mother and daughter were found only in October 2021 in a mass grave at the Joševa site.

The Paraganlija family remains a symbol of one of the most tragic sufferings in Podrinje. Their tragedy reflects the dimension of evil that engulfed Bratunac in the spring of 1992.

Only two small souls survived – a girl aged 11 months and her five-year-old brother, who was later found in Tuzla after, presumably, being taken to Serbia for adoption. Today, years later, the brother and sister will see their mother and sister find their final rest, who will be laid side by side in the "Veljaci" cemetery.

Family members, friends, citizens, and representatives of institutions gathered at the farewell ceremony in Tuzla. Among the victims whose mortal remains will be buried tomorrow are Hamdija Salkić, Mevludin Šehić, Džemal Pitarević, and Hanija Čivić.

Ramiz Salkić, who will bury his brother Hamdija, also attended the farewell of the coffins today. The ordeal they went through in 1992, their captivity and the camps, forever marked this family.

Salkić is today a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska, but he uses every address to reiterate the fact that aggression was committed against BiH, during which the genocide in Srebrenica was committed.

Victims to be buried:

Zineta and Almera Paraganlija, mortal remains exhumed in 2021 at the Joševa site;

Hamdija Salkić (1971) from Hranča near Bratunac, whose remains were identified in 2023;

Mevludin Šehić (1958) from Dimnići near Srebrenica, disappeared during the war in the Bratunac area, his remains were handed over from Serbia in 2023;

Džemal Pitarević (1955) from Srebrenica, the oldest victim in this year's funeral prayer, whose mortal remains were found in three mass graves;

Hanija Čivić (1959), killed in 1992 in the settlement of Loznička Rijeka, Bratunac municipality.