NUŽDIĆ: CRIME IN ZALAZJE AND SASE WAS ONE OF THE GRAVEST IN CENTRAL PODRINJE

BANJA LUKA, JULY 10 /SRNA/ - The attack by Muslim forces on Zalazje and Sase on June 8 and on St. Peter’s Day, July 12, 1992, was one of the gravest crimes against Serbs in Central Podrinje, and the remains of some of those killed have still not been found, said Viktor Nuždić, acting director of the Republika Srpska Centre for Research of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons.

Nuždić said that, as has happened many times throughout history, major Christian holidays were days of suffering for the Serbian people. "The bodies of some of those killed were desecrated after death, for which Suad Samajlović was given a final sentence of only three years in prison. Apart from that verdict, no one else has been finally convicted for this crime," Nuždić told SRNA on the occasion of the upcoming commemoration marking 34 years since the suffering of Serbs in Zalazje and Sase near Srebrenica. Nuždić stressed that Serbs from Central Podrinje had been subjected to crimes from the very beginning of the war, recalling that MP Goran Zekić was killed on May 8, 1992. "Just one month later, on June 8, 1992, the village of Zalazje was attacked for the first time, and nine people were killed, while most of the village was burned and destroyed. This attack was an introduction to the tragedy that would follow," Nuždić pointed out. He stressed that the village's few and poorly armed defenders put up resistance, trying to enable the civilian population to withdraw to a safe area. "Despite their sacrifice, the village was burned, and many Serbs were killed or captured. Among those captured was a group of Serbs that included Judge Slobodan Ilić. They were taken to Srebrenica, where they were killed. During the same period, nurse Radivojka Milanović and another Serb woman were also killed in Srebrenica," Nuždić said. He concluded that the Republika Srpska Centre had documented this crime as well, so that the truth would remain recorded and the victims would not be consigned to oblivion. In Zalazje, in the municipality of Srebrenica, a commemoration will be held on St. Peter’s Day marking 34 years since the killing of 69 Serbian civilians and soldiers on July 12, 1992, in this village and in Sase, as well as in Biljača and Zagonе in the Bratunac area. In addition to the 69 people killed and a large number of wounded, 22 Serbs went missing on that tragic St. Peter's Day, of whom 10 were accidentally discovered and exhumed on June 10, 2011, from a mass grave in Zalazje during a search for the remains of Bosniak victims. The remains of those killed were identified after more than a year and buried on St. Peter's Day in 2012, while two others were exhumed, identified, and buried earlier. Ten missing persons have still not been found, and all trace of them was lost in the detention facility at the former Srebrenica police station. None of those captured survived, and no one has been held accountable for their killings.