DODIK: WHAT HAPPENED IN PREBILOVCI WAS GENOCIDE

PREBILOVCI, AUGUST 5 /SRNA/ - President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik stated that Prebilovci near Čapljina is one of the places that suffered the most in the history of Serbian suffering and represents a clear example of genocide.

Dodik said that a monstrous crime took place in Prebilovci, with the intent to wipe out everything that was alive. "People were killed indiscriminately. No regard was given to children, women, or the elderly. To the killers, it only mattered that they were Serbs, and they murdered anyone they came across on these hills and this plain. Only those villagers who were not here that day survived, " Dodik told reporters in Prebilovci, where he attended the evening liturgy on the eve of the feast of the Holy Prebilovci and Other Herzegovinian Martyrs. He noted that after decades of this crime being concealed by the communist regime, the Serbian people gathered to collect the victims' remains and lay them in a single ossuary. "That happened right here, and the foundations of the ossuary were consecrated. The late Patriarch Pavle was here as well. We believed a new era was beginning, one of remembrance. Unfortunately, then came another tragic time when the remains were once again desecrated and destroyed by explosives. But, by God's will, we gathered again, built this church, and continue striving to do more," said Dodik. He stated that he has been in discussions with the metropolitan about establishing a monastery in Prebilovci, so that there may be lasting life here through the Church and remembrance. "Republika Srpska and Serbia should secure permanent funding to sustain this," Dodik added. He pointed out that today, Ustaše ideologies are "rampant" in Croatia, even though the criminal Croatian Operation Storm expelled 250,000 Serbs from Krajina and killed 1,876 people. "And it was also in August, just decades earlier, that the horrors in Prebilovci occurred. That tells you everything about their intentions," Dodik said. He warned that if the Serbian people do not defend themselves and remember, their enemies may attempt to repeat these crimes. "The great powers of the world have not seen fit to condemn the ethnic cleansing in Croatia or to put on the agenda the suffering of Serbs in Jasenovac, Brod, Prebilovci, or Brod na Drini, places where the number of victims far surpasses that of the crimes in Srebrenica, which they insist on framing to fit their own narrative," said Dodik. The President of Srpska emphasized that one cannot remain indifferent to crimes committed against the Serbian people simply because they are Serbs. The massacre in Prebilovci was committed by Ustashas between August 6 and 11, 1941, under the command of Ivan Jovanović "Crni." Most victims were thrown alive into the Golubinka pit, while others were killed on the spot. The Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Prebilovci was built and consecrated in 2015 in memory of around 4,000 Serbs from Lower Herzegovina who were killed by Ustasha during World War II and canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church that same year. The church in Prebilovci was built with the support of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik and donations from Serbs in the diaspora. It was modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, symbolizing resurrection and life.