Anniversary of the Massacre at Solidarity Square Marked: Killed While Waiting in Line for Bread

(Patria) - By laying flowers and paying tribute at the site of the massacre, family members, friends, and government representatives marked the 32nd anniversary of the massacre at Solidarity Square, at number 14, in Alipašino Polje.

At that location, 32 years ago, a mortar shell fired from the aggressor's positions of the Army of Republika Srpska from the direction of Nedžarići killed 11 and seriously or lightly wounded 53 Sarajevans while they were waiting in line for bread.

The killed were: Rifet Bahtić, Jasmina Duraković, Jasmin Đozo, Muniba Ganija, Nermin Gušić, Zoran Kafedžić, Sadrija Krasnići, Adnan Lingo, Nadežda Puljić, Daniel Turkalj, and Edin Uzunović.

Flowers were laid at the site of the massacre by members of the Parliament of Sarajevo Canton, Rusmir Pobrić and Jasmin Šaljić, and the Minister of Education of Sarajevo Canton, Naida Hota-Muminović.

"Even today, after 32 years, we talk about them because it is very important, not only for the past and the present, but especially for the future. It is necessary to constantly talk about it so that such a crime does not happen again. We must remember the thousand-day siege of Sarajevo in which its citizens were exposed to great suffering, when they were hungry, thirsty, freezing, exposed to constant shelling and snipers. We must not and will not forget our 12,000 fellow citizens who were killed, of whom 1,601 were children," said Minister Hota-Muminović.

The massacre at Solidarity Square was the first of three horrific massacres committed by the aggressor army in Alipašino Polje during the siege of Sarajevo. After this killing of innocent civilians, in November 1993, a shell was fired that killed a teacher and students at ZAVNOBiH Square, and a year later, the third massacre occurred in which an aggressor shell killed children sledding in Bosanska Street.

For this and other crimes committed in Sarajevo, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague sentenced Stanislav Galić, commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, to the maximum penalty, life imprisonment. The Court sentenced Dragomir Milošević, who succeeded Galić and continued the crimes against Sarajevans, to 33 years.

Ratko Mladić, commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska from 1992-1996, is also serving a life sentence. He was convicted, among other things, for a joint criminal enterprise "which aimed to spread terror among the civilian population of Sarajevo through a campaign of sniping and shelling." Radovan Karadžić, the first president of Republika Srpska, shares the same fate and will also not live to see freedom.