Journalist Sanel Kajan publishes recordings of the first attacks on Mostar after 26 years

MOSTAR, (Patria) - Long-time journalist Sanel Kajan has released exclusive audio recordings from May 9, 1993, when the attack by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Croatian Army on Mostar began.

On Victory over Fascism Day, HVO and Croatian Army units attacked Mostar, while members of the Army of RBiH, as well as civilians from Mostar and refugees from other cities in Herzegovina, found themselves in the besieged city.

 

 

Through Croatian Radio Mostar, Zlata Brbor read an HVO proclamation calling on members of the Army of RBiH to surrender, and all citizens of Mostar of Bosniak nationality were told to hang white sheets and rags on their houses and apartments, and to wear white armbands.

"The fact that a seventeen-year-old recorded and saved recordings from that time speaks volumes about how 'ready' and 'organized' we were in May 1993. And no one else! I thank God who gave me the sense and awareness of how important the recordings I saved would be. No one has ever thanked me in any way for it. It is important to me that the truth is preserved, that the evidence is preserved," Kajan wrote on one of the recordings he published on his YouTube channel.

Kajan told the Patria agency that he has more recordings of Mostar from that period in his archive, which he will publish every May 9, when Europe celebrates Europe Day and Victory over Fascism Day.

The International Court in The Hague convicted former leaders of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, as well as several HVO members, for crimes in Mostar.