KOVAČEVIĆ: REPUBLIKA SRPSKA IS A GUARANTEE THAT CRIME LIKE THE ONE IN ŠARGOVAC WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN

BANJA LUKA, FEBRUARY 6 /SRNA/ - The envoy of the President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Kovačević, stated today in Šargovac that Republika Srpska is a guarantee that a crime against children simply because they bear Serbian names and surnames and were baptized in the Serbian Orthodox Church will never again occur.

Kovačević, who attended today's commemoration marking 84 years since the Ustasha crime in Šargovac, noted that in the wider Banja Luka area, the Ustashas killed a total of 551 children, including 52 from this school, as well as 1,200 people, solely because they were Serbs. "That is the reason why Republika Srpska was founded on January 9, 1992 – to ensure that the genocide against the Serbs from the Second World War is never repeated," Kovačević emphasized. Kovačević added that children still attend the "Đura Jakšić" Elementary School in Šargovac today, despite the Ustashas' intention to ensure that there are no Serbs in this area. In a massacre of Serbs in the Banja Luka neighborhoods of Motike, Šargovac, Drakulić, and at the Rakovac mine on February 7, 1942, the Ustashas brutally murdered more than 2,300 Serbs, including 551 children. Among those killed savagely, without a single shot being fired, were 52 pupils of the Đura Jakšić Elementary School in Šargovac.