HEART-WRENCHING TESTIMONY OF DUŠANKA JOVANOVIĆ, WHO LOST HER FATHER AND BROTHER

BANJA LUKA, October 6 /SRNA/ – The Republika Srpska Memorial Centre has recorded a heartbreaking testimony of Dušanka Jovanović from Gornja Pecka, who lost both her father and brother during the Defensive - Patriotic War.

"This tragic story reflects the deep and multifaceted familysacrifice of an ordinary Serb rural family, like many others across Republika Srpska," stated the Srpska Memorial Centre. Dušanka's older brother, Simo Bušin, who served in the Republika Srpska Army and had seen numerous battlefronts, was killed in October 1995 while defending Mrkonjić Grad. One month before him, Dušanka’s father, Dušan Bušin, was also killed. Dušanka's mother identified her son’s body in a mass grave on her own birthday, April 3, 1996, after months of uncertainty and searching. As Dušanka says, fate was tragically symbolic - on the same day Mrkonjić Grad fell, October 10, her father was celebrating his birthday, and it was that very day she lost her brother. Amid fear, displacement, and searching, this family continued on. Today, Dušanka lives with her brother and daughter. Their family, which once had eleven members, has been reduced to just three. Denis Bojić, director of the Srpska Memorial Centre, said that hundreds of other testimonies are part of the center’s archives, which continue to record the personal stories and suffering of families from all areas where the Serb people endured losses during the 1991–1995 war, with the goal of preserving truth, honoring victims, and remembering their sacrifice. The Memorial Centre of Republika Srpska calls on family members of fallen and missing civilians and soldiers from the Defensive-Patriotic War to share their testimonies, so that the truth and memory of those who gave their lives for their homeland may be preserved.