Zagreb: 1,100 Bosniaks Gave Their Lives Defending Croatia Since 1991

Around 25,000 Bosniaks participated in the units of the Croatian Army and Police who fought against Serbian forces since 1991. Unfortunately, around 1,100 of them lost their lives during these conflicts. Proportionally, this is the largest contribution of one nation to the defense of Croatia – says the president of the Council of the Bosniak National Minority of the City of Zagreb, Kemal Bukvić, for the BiH news agency Patria.

- But, you know, we are pleased that the Croatian people appreciate it. They have not forgotten the contribution Bosniaks made to the defense of Croatia's independence – explains Bukvić, adding that Croatia fully financed the construction of a memorial to the fallen Bosniaks, which was placed in front of the Islamic Center in Zagreb.

The Council of the Bosniak National Minority of the City of Zagreb is currently preparing for May 8 and 9, when the IV Memorial Days of Šefik Pezerović will be held. He was the first Bosniak police officer to die in the defense of Croatia.

Šefik Pezerović was born in 1968 in Palanka near Brčko, from where he moved to Zagreb, where he finished elementary and high school. In the summer of 1990, as a volunteer, he completed training for special units, after which he joined the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

He was seriously wounded by a grenade near Kozibrod on May 24, 1991. The ambulance carrying him and two other wounded men to the hospital was captured by Serbian forces, and all trace of Pezerović was lost until May 2002. He was buried at the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb. He was buried on May 18, 2002, in the Alley of Defenders with high military honors.

Bukvić says that during the Memorial Days of Šefik Pezerović, all of Croatia remembers the fallen Bosniaks, and that top Croatian officials regularly attend the event, with the Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić, among the first, writes Patria.