TUBIĆ: OUR BABIES WERE KILLED, DEATH WITHOUT OXYGEN IS THE WORST

BANJA LUKA, MAY 22 /SRNA/ - The 12 innocent Banja Luka babies were killed 34 years ago because world powers did not allow the transport of oxygen, said Željka Tubić, whose son was born on May 19, 1992, and died only a few days later.

"The worst death is dying without oxygen, when you cannot breathe," Tubić told reporters today at the New Cemetery in Banja Luka, where she attended the memorial service and flower-laying ceremony marking 34 years since the deaths of the 12 babies. Tubić, secretary of the 12 Babies Association, said that each year becomes increasingly difficult and painful for her as a mother because the loss of a child is a wound that can never heal. "A mother's heart bleeds day after day," she stressed. She said that the mothers, seven families in total in Republika Srpska, still have not secured their rights, except for minimal civilian war victim status. Milorad Đukelić from Mrkonjić Grad, the father of one of the deceased babies, told reporters that this tragedy can never fade with time for him. "Every year is harder and more difficult for me, and the biggest problem is achieving the rights and status that belong to us," Đukelić said. Banja Luka today is marking 34 years since the deaths of 12 babies at the then Clinical Center, who died because of the lack of understanding of the world powers that did not allow the transport of oxygen.