Defense of Dobrinja from the aggressor: In four massacres, 43 killed, over 120 wounded

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - June 1992 was fateful for Dobrinja and Aerodromsko naselje. In June alone, during the aggression and the longest siege of a city, there were three massacres in Dobrinja in which 30 people were killed and 107 wounded. The first massacre was on June 1, 1993, the second on June 18, 1995, and the third on June 21, 1995. Another massacre occurred on July 12, 1993, when 13 Sarajevans were killed and 14 lightly or seriously wounded while queuing for water by a shell fired from aggressor positions.

In the early morning of June 17, 1992, Serbian forces, under the directive of Ratko Mladić, reinforced by a unit of the Yugoslav Army, entered Aerodromsko naselje with armored personnel carriers and tanks. Forty civilians were killed and found in a mass grave in Vlakovo.

The Niš special forces formation pulled civilians from houses and apartments, shooting or slitting their throats. According to surviving civilians, one third of the killed were Croats and Serbs, whom the Serbian forces presented as victims of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Incursions were also carried out in Dobrinja 3, where men were taken to the Kula prison, from where they were exchanged several days later during the night.

On that June 17, detonations echoed every 30 seconds. The attacks lasted until late into the night. June 21, 1992 was fateful for Dobrinja. The defenders of Dobrinja, reinforced by special forces who, by order of President Alija Izetbegović after talks with the wartime commander of Dobrinja, Ismet Hadžić Mutevelija, arrived on the night of June 21-22, managed to break the Serbian occupation.

Dobrinja did not give in; to the first barricades we responded with barricades, we did not allow them to close us in, recalls Ismet Hadžić Mutevelija.

The Dobrinja settlement was of not only operational and tactical but also strategic importance for the aggressor, and even before the armed incursion into Dobrinja, the aggressor intimidated the population to discourage resistance.

Small groups organized themselves in parts of the settlement. Dobrinja was already under attack on May 5 by Serbian forces that entered Dobrinja 1, 3, and 5 and Aerodromsko naselje with armored personnel carriers.

The Chetniks entered overnight from Trapara, where the first JNA armored personnel carrier was destroyed by a hit from Zajka Vatrenjak.

Lukavička Road was their main thoroughfare (today's Želimir Vidović Kelija Street).

On one armored personnel carrier, a flag was placed reading "Arkan," giving the fighters additional motivation to destroy it.

Fikret Kereš Fića, one of the most important heroes of Dobrinja, states in the film "Dobrinja - Siege within a Siege" by Avdo Huseinović that they received a handheld rocket launcher and no one dared to fire it except Zajka Vatrenjak. Then Fića took over and, until he was wounded, managed to destroy 10 armored personnel carriers and 4 tanks.