SERBIAN CHILDREN MURDERED IN THE NDH WILL NEVER BE JUST A NUMBER, REPUBLIKA SRPSKA WILL REMEMBER THEM FOREVER

PRIJEDOR, JULY 19 /SRNA/ - Tens of thousands of Serbian children murdered in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ will never be just a number, and Republika Srpska will remember them forever; this is a message from today's commemoration of the Day of Remembrance for Children Murdered during the Genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the NDH.

This Republic-level commemorative date was marked at the memorial ossuary in the hamlet of Macure, part of the Gornji Jelovac settlement near Prijedor, where a memorial service was held for the innocent victims, followed by the laying of wreaths and flowers, and a spiritual program. The envoy of the Republika Srpska President, Mira Zgonjanin, said in her address that the Serbian people have a duty to remember, as forgetting is a second death for all the innocent victims. The Assistant Minister of Labor, War Veterans and Disabled Persons Protection, Nebojša Vidaković, reminded that the NDH was the only country in the world to establish concentration camps specifically for children. "According to official data, more than 75,000 children were killed in the NDH, most of them Serbs," he said. The State Secretary at the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, Nikola Vukelić, attended the commemoration on behalf of the Government of Serbia. He said that Serbia remembers the Ustaše genocide in the Second World War and cherishes the memory of innocent victims, particularly children. In the summer of 1942, 75 children under the age of 14 were killed in Gornji Jelovac without a single shot being fired. In the process of "cleansing the Croatian nation," Serbian, Roma, and Jewish children were killed in the most horrific ways - more than 10,000 Serbian children in Stara Gradiška, around 5,680 in Jablance and Mlaka, about 1,300 in Camp III in Jasenovac, about 1,400 in Novska, around 2,450 in Prijedor, about 2,000 in Cerovljani near Kozarska Dubica, while approximately 1,000 were sent to the camp at the Old Fairground /Staro Sajmište/ in Zemun. It has been established that 19,432 children perished in Jasenovac alone. Children were also murdered at numerous execution sites outside the camps; for example, 120 children under the age of 12 were killed in Prebilovci, and 551 children in Drakulić, Motike, and Šargovac. Many Serbian children disappeared without a trace — in pits, ravines, across the rocky terrain of Banija, Kordun, Herzegovina, on Kozara, and in many other places where Serbs lived. This date was included in the calendar of events of the Republic's importance at the end of 2020; since 2021, it has been commemorated by the Republika Srpska Government's Committee for the Preservation of Traditions of Liberation Wars.