Friday

29th Mar 2024

Bosniak leader pays tribute to Serb victims

  • Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic said he should have visited the massacre site of Kazani sooner. (Photo: Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic, one of Bosnia's three heads of state, has paid tribute to civilians murdered by Muslims during the Bosnian war in 1993.

Izetbegovic put a wreath of flowers by the massacre site, Kazani, a ravine in the hills outside Sarajevo on Monday (13 June).

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

"I feel I have a debt [towards the victims]," said Izetbegovic, who serves as one of three members of Bosnia's rotating presidency.

He was accompanied by other Muslim leaders, including prime minister Denis Zvizdic. It was the first time that senior Muslim officials visited the massacre site of Kazani.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnian war of 1992-1995. The capital, Sarajevo, was held under siege by Bosnian Serb forces for more than three years. More than 10,000 people died because of Serbian shelling and sniper fire.

But Bosniak paramilitary groups also killed Serb civilians, a fact that many Bosniak Muslims for years failed to acknowledge.

Twenty-nine bodies have been found at Kazani so far. Many of them were not possible to identify. Most of the rest were Serbs, but investigators also recognised Croats, a Ukrainian couple and a Bosniak.

It is possible that more bodies remain in the Kazani pit, as the process of exhumation was halted and never completed.

Izetbegovic’s father, Alija, chaired the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time of the massacre. He was also in office in 1996 when the Bosnian government gave a war hero’s burial to Musan Topologic, known as Caco, the paramilitary leader who was in charge of the Kazani killings.

Izetbegovic said he should have come to Kazani sooner. He urged the people of Bosnia to unite and report murder locations where people’s bodies still remain, allowing them to finally be buried.

“I am ready to invest special efforts into this,” Izetbegovic said.

He also said he hoped his visit would inspire other Bosnian officials to make similar moves.

Miladin Vidakovic, president of the Serbian Civic Council, hailed the visit as a "brave gesture for Serb people and the families" of the victims.

Bosnian football fans may miss out on Euro 2016

European Broadcasting Union concerned that Bosnia may become the first country without a public broadcaster, meaning sports fans would miss watching the Euro competition.

Analysis

Bosnia's EU application masks turmoil

The former Yugoslavia republic said it will formally apply to the EU next Monday. But the country still faces a number of underlying problems that make accession an unrealistic possibility in the short term.

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us