UN forces entered the eastern part: Found 55,000 people on the brink of starvation, only Vukovar was worse than Mostar

United Nations peacekeeping forces entered the eastern part of Mostar on August 21, 1993, for the first time after two months of fierce fighting between the Army of RBiH and HVO, where they found 55,000 people on the brink of starvation. This was stated during the trial in The Hague in the case of "Prlić and others" by the former head of civil affairs of the UN Peace Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cedric Thornberry, writes the Patria News Agency.

Thornberry told the courtroom in The Hague that the situation in the eastern part of the city in August 1993 was worse than anything seen so far in the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of Vukovar.

- The Croats wanted to cut off a piece of BiH for themselves, and they saw Mostar as the heart of their state. There was hardly a building that was not riddled with various types of projectiles, and civilians were a constant target of HVO artillery and sniper fire, Thornberry described.

He entered eastern Mostar for the first time on August 21, 1993, accompanied by journalists whose footage went around the world in those days.

- Signs of severe malnutrition were visible on people due to lack of food, and the main source of water supply was contaminated water from the Neretva River, described Thornberry, who returned to Mostar four days later with the first humanitarian aid convoy.

Granić approved the entry of the humanitarian convoy

Thornberry spoke about the entry of the humanitarian convoy, as he said in his testimony in The Hague, with the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Croatia, Mate Granić, who conveyed to him the position of Franjo Tuđman that the Croatian leadership supported the movement of the convoy.

Granić told him, among other things, that the president of the so-called HZ HB, Mate Boban, was "obliged to do what was asked of him". According to the witness's words, it was clear that Boban saw Tuđman as his president.