THE SEARCH FOR REMAINS OF MURDERED CHILDREN STILL ONGOING

BANJA LUKA, SEPTEMBER 21 /SRNA/ - It has been 30 years since the crime committed by regular Croatian forces against Serb civilians, including children, during an attack on a refugee convoy in Bravnice near Jajce, which had set out from Donji Vakuf seeking safety in Republika Srpska.

A report has been filed with the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office in Serbia against members of the Fourth Guards Brigade and Croatian General Damir Krstičević, stating that 81 people were killed in the attack. According to the Republika Srpska Center for Research of War, War Crimes, and the Search for Missing Persons, the youngest victims of the Bravnice crime, committed on September 13, 1995, were Dragan and Boris Janković, aged three and six, as well as siblings Aleksandar and Vesna Petrić, also aged three and six. The remains of Aleksandar and Vesna have not been found to this day, and Velibor Janković, born in 1982, was never located either. Danijela Janković, born in 1978, was also killed in the attack on the refugee convoy. Acting director of the Republika Srpska Center Viktor Nuždić told SRNA that 13 women were killed in the attack on the refugee convoy, and that a total of 14 people are still listed as missing. “The survivors were taken to camps where some of them were subjected to abuse,” Nuždić said. He pointed out that in September 1995, corpses, mass graves, and burned villages remained behind the so-called Army of BiH, the Croatian Army, and the HVO, noting that the crime in Bravnice was one of the most horrific. “The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska filed a report on this crime in 2005, but unfortunately, nothing was done, as in many other cases where the victims were Serbs,” Nuždić said. He pointed out that the years pass, witnesses and survivors die, while the perpetrators remain unpunished. “An attempt is being made to write a new revisionist history in which there is no place for Serb victims. It is our duty, as institutions responsible for documenting and preserving collective memory, to ensure that this is not forgotten, to bear witness, and to keep the truth from oblivion,” Nuždić said. The families of the victims of this massacre are most hurt by the fact that no one has been held accountable for this crime. Bojan Trgić, president of the assembly of the Homeland Association of Serbs from Donji Vakuf in Gradiška, told SRNA that the soldiers from Donji Vakuf and the 19th Srbobran Brigade were among the most honorable units in the past Defense-Patriotic War, where the brigade not only did not commit any crimes, but in 1993, it also allowed several thousand Croatian refugees from Travnik, Vitez, and Bugojno to pass safely. “The Croats repaid the Serb people from Donji Vakuf by shelling the refugee convoy in Bravnice near Jajce in 1995, killing civilians and taking the survivors to a camp in Livno,” Trgić said. He recalled that, in commemoration of this unpunished crime and 30 years of the exodus of Serbs from Donji Vakuf, a ceremonial academy was held at the Gradiška Cultural Center, noting that the construction of a memorial complex in Bravnice is planned. “The Homeland Association of Serbs from Donji Vakuf in Gradiška has installed a memorial plaque with the names of those who perished in Bravnice, where the construction of a memorial complex is planned to honor the victims at least in this way. We want this crime not to be forgotten and for the monument to serve as a reminder of the hard days endured by Serbs from Donji Vakuf and other places from which people were killed, expelled, and to which they never returned,” Trgić concluded. Next year, the fourth volume of the Atlas of Crimes Against Serbs, published by the Republika Srpska Center for Research of War, War Crimes, and the Search for Missing Persons, will be completed, covering events from 1995. “That will be the most complete and comprehensive research regarding the crimes against Serbs, based on evidence, testimonies, and facts,” Nuždić said.