GRAORAC: SERBS OF CENTRAL PODRINJE AND BIRAČ WERE KILLED BECAUSE OF THEIR NAME AND FAITH

BANJA LUKA, JULY 5 /SRNA/ - The head of the Republika Srpska Organisation of Families of Captured, Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians, Isidora Graorac, says that 3,267 Serbs of central Podrinje and the Birač region were killed during the past war because of their name and faith, stressing that no one can forget the evil sown during those years, which no one has been held accountable for.

Graorac emphasizes there is hardly a single Serb household in this region that has not felt the horrors of war, killing, and expulsion - wounds that have not healed 33 later and never will. “Every violent death caused by the ‘comrades’ of Naser Orić was mourned in Podrinje in 1992 and 1993. They killed everything that stood in their path, leaving behind devastation and death,” Graorac told SRNA, on the occasion of marking 33 years since the suffering of Serbs in central Podrinje and Birč. According to her, back then they were bothered by the Serbs, so they killed them. Today, they are bothered even by the images of the victims placed along the regional Bratunac-Srebrenica road; the truth is the one that bothers them. “As long as we exist, as long as we live in this area - and we will be living here for centuries to come, just as we always have - you will look into their innocent faces, so you never forget them,” Graorac said. She stressed that the Serb people must constantly speak about and testify to the suffering of Serb victims and never allow them to fall into oblivion. To speak about them, to testify, to record, and to tell the stories about them is our duty, because only then will they never be forgotten,” Graorac emphasized. She adds the perpetrators and ordering parties of the crimes against Serbs in Podrinje must not go unpunished, noting that the disgraceful verdict to Orić is better left unmentioned so as not to reopen the wounds of Serb families draped in black. Graorac called on Serbs to gather in Bratunac tomorrow, to pray together for the souls of the murdered, and to let the flames of candles light the path of truth, which will eventually prevail -sooner or later. “Let us all stand by the families of the murdered, share their grief and pain, and let every Serb heart and gaze be turned toward Podrinje today, as we remember the monstrously killed innocent Serb civilians and soldiers,” Graorac concluded. Bratunac is marking today the 33rd anniversary of the suffering of the Serb people in central Podrinje and Birač, where 3,267 Serbs were killed during the Defensive-Patriotic War. For this reason, July 5 has been declared a Day of Mourning in Republika Srpska.