Collective funeral held at "Veljaci" Memorial Center for three murdered civilians from Bratunac

BRATUNAC, (Patria) - More than 2,000 believers prayed a collective funeral on Sunday at the "Veljaci" Memorial Center for three identified civilian victims of mass crimes committed in Bratunac during the aggression in 1992-1995.

Family members and friends bid farewell to their loved ones: Rifet (Rešo) Salihović, born in 1949; Šemso (Hamid) Zukanović, born in 1949; and Munir (Hamed) Tahić, born in 1971, all born in Bratunac, and murdered in brutal attacks on Bosniak villages in 1992, BMG announced.

More than 715 Bosniak civilians were killed in the Bratunac area. Families and organizations searching for the missing are still looking for about 300 missing persons, and 304 identified bodies have been buried in the Veljaci cemetery so far. Families and associations of victims' families have been demanding for many years that the intensity of identifications be increased, so that witnesses and survivors of the events of the nineties can live to bury the victims with dignity.

The thirteenth collective funeral was led by the mufti of Tuzla, Vahid-ef. Fazlović, who, in his address, called on believers to remember the crimes, to remind others of them so that they are not repeated, and to build a stable future with their neighbors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which they should build together as a country of the rule of law.

On behalf of the families of the murdered Bosniaks, Admira Golić from Bratunac read a letter, which stated, among other things: "We, here on the Drina, are determined to remain forever on the land of our mothers and fathers, our great-grandfathers. To preserve their graves. We are determined to build a future with other peoples and faiths. We want Bosnia and Herzegovina as a country of equal rights and opportunities. But we repeat, we live by the vow we made to our loved ones, whose bones we are lowering into graves today: we will not give up Bosnia and Herzegovina; we will not give up the Drina; we will never forget the committed Genocide and we will never stop searching for war criminals. We want to build a future. We are determined, and the best proof of this is our children who attend schools and universities here today, despite the open discrimination against us."