Anniversary of the murder of six Srebrenica men near Trnovo marked: The world has not learned its lesson, war criminals are glorified

(Patria) - Members of genocide victims' families gathered on Thursday at the Godinjske bare execution site in Trnovo, about 30 kilometers from Sarajevo, the place where members of the infamous Serbian unit "Scorpions" killed six Bosniaks from Srebrenica 30 years ago by shooting them in the back.

Six Bosniaks, boys and men from Srebrenica, were killed by members of the Serbian unit "Scorpions" in July 1995 in Trnovo. The victims were Safet Fejzić (17), Azmir Alispahić (16), Sidik Salkić (36), Smail Ibrahimović (35), Dino Salihović (18), and Juso Delić (25). There is still no memorial at the site today.

During the trial of Slobodan Milošević in 2005, a video of the execution was released, showing how the Srebrenica men were brutally murdered.

The victims were shot in the head, in the back, at close range.

Sevdalija Delić, brother of Juso Delić, who was 25 years old when he was executed, is a genocide survivor. He recounted how he saw his brother shortly before the fall of Bukva, a place near Kamenica where a large number of people perished and which participants of the Peace March pass every year.

Delić says he had difficulty recognizing his brother in the execution video because he had been severely beaten before the execution.

“I didn’t recognize my brother. He was so mutilated, beaten before the execution, that I didn’t recognize my own brother. Later, he was identified by DNA analysis and thanks to the shirt he was wearing,” said Delić, and continued:

“My brother, these six young men, were killed under the umbrella of the United Nations. And Serbian criminals, aggressors, enemies, just carried it out. The world, I am convinced, the world watched all of this, filmed our suffering from the air. So, surviving Srebrenica, that cannot be described. It is Gehenna, the Day of Judgment, when no one can help anyone, the way it all happened."

Delić adds that today, after 30 years, it is wrong to rely on "some international community".

“There is nothing to it, those are empty illusions. Because the world has effectively betrayed us and killed us with the help of Serbs. And here today, after 30 years, they say never again genocide. We are watching live today, genocide is happening. No one can do anything, the United Nations does not exist, nothing exists, today only the law of the stronger exists and that one rules, governs,” he concluded.

The president of the Association of Mothers of the Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves, Munira Subašić, emphasizes that even after 30 years, no lesson has been learned from Srebrenica.

“Thirty years of no repentance, no apology, thirty years of glorifying war criminals, denying the truth, denying genocide, being proud of what they have done. Then we ask ourselves where is the human mind, the human mind has failed, criminals have been emboldened. I think the world, Europe, the Court and the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are not doing their job but are making a circus of themselves, are to blame for all of this,” Subašić stated.

If the world and Europe had learned something, Subašić adds, genocide would not have happened after the Holocaust.

“If they had learned something after the genocide, Ukraine, Palestine, and many other places would not be burning today. Today, as we stand here, a large number of mothers are mourning, a large number of children are being killed, a large number of girls are being raped. Who has the right to do that? Isn’t human life the same. Differences are good, but divisions are not,” Subašić stated.

In May 2023, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague definitively sentenced former heads of the State Security Service (SDB) of Serbia, Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, to 15 years in prison each for a joint criminal enterprise in six municipalities in BiH, including the crime in Trnovo.

In addition, by the verdict of the Higher Court in Belgrade in 2007, four former members of the paramilitary unit “Scorpions” – Slobodan Medić, Branislav Medić, Pero Petrašević, and Aleksandar Medić – were sentenced to a total of 53 years in prison for the murders of Srebrenica men committed near Trnovo.

In Croatia, former members of the “Scorpions” Milorad Momić and Slobodan Davidović were sentenced to 15 years in prison each for the crime near Trnovo.