MUSLIM FORCES MASSACRED JNA CONVOY IN TUZLA

BIJELJINA, MAY 14 /SRNA/ – On May 15, 1992, Muslim units in Tuzla attacked a convoy of the Yugoslav People's Army /JNA/ and, according to official data, killed 54 soldiers and wounded 78, violating an agreement under which the convoy, like other JNA units, was supposed to leave BiH peacefully.

Of the 44 captured soldiers, five were later killed, while the others were abused and tortured. The Dobrovoljačka Street in Sarajevo scenario, which had occurred less than two weeks earlier, was repeated - the first part of the JNA convoy was allowed to pass, while the second part was ambushed. The attack on the JNA convoy in Tuzla is also known as the “Tuzla Convoy”. The attack was carried out by members of the Patriotic League and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the then BiH under the control of the wartime government in Sarajevo. The crime was broadcast live on a local television station. Bosniaks commemorate this day and the killing of innocent conscript soldiers as the "Day of Tuzla's Defence". According to some information, it is possible that more soldiers and civilians employed by the JNA were killed, while Bosniak authorities have, for all these years, protected those who ordered the crime and concealed three additional mass graves. The author of the book Tuzlanska Convoy, Dragan Mrkajić, claims that the attack was an introduction to the largest ethnic cleansing of Serbs in BiH after the Second World War. Through testimonies of 33 surviving participants and harrowing accounts from victims' families, Mrkajić supports claims of a "perfect crime" at Brčanska Malta as a method of special warfare that pushed BiH into years of bloodshed - due to the "interests of great powers and the nationalism of small peoples".