26th anniversary of the suffering of the residents of Bojnik, Ahatovići and Dobroševići marked

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - In the locality of Sokolina, near Ilijaš, the 26th anniversary of the murder of 48 Bosniaks from the settlement of Ahatovići and the suffering of 18 šehids and fallen soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who died on Ranovača hill while attempting to break through to free territory, was marked today.

At the memorial in Sokolina, flowers were laid by the Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs of Sarajevo Canton, Osman Smajlović, and the commemoration was attended by representatives of the municipalities of Novi Grad and Ilijaš, veterans' associations, residents of Ahatovići, Bojnik and Dobroševići, as well as a large number of families of the victims, surviving soldiers and camp detainees.

On this day in 1992, the forces of the aggressor on Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered the residents of Bojnik, Dobroševići and Ahatovići, who were captured in the Rajlovac camp, to board a bus that was supposedly supposed to take them for an exchange. But then, instead of an exchange, 56 unarmed camp detainees were taken to Sokolina, where most of them were killed in the most brutal manner.

Upon arrival in Sokolina, members of the aggressor forces ordered the prisoners to lie down under the bus, and then showered the bus with shells, bullets and bombs.

Out of this massacre, of the 56 captured, eight survived, one of whom has since died, while the others are living witnesses to the horrific crime committed in Sokolina.

A memorial was erected for the murdered Bosniaks in Sokolina, and the bus in which they were brought and killed still stands in the same place, bearing witness to the unprecedented crime committed against the innocent.

After laying flowers and reciting the Fatiha at the Sokolina memorial, numerous delegations also paid tribute to the victims killed in the mass grave in the village of Ravne and on Ranovača hill, where on 2 June 1992, 18 soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina died.