MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR SERBS KILLED IN ZALAZJE TO BE HELD TOMORROW

SREBRENICA, JULY 11 /SRNA/ - Tomorrow, a commemoration will be held in Zalazje near Srebrenica marking 34 years since the killing of 69 Serb civilians and soldiers, who were killed by members of Muslim forces on Petrovdan in 1992 in the Srebrenica villages of Sase and Zalazje and the Bratunac villages of Biljača and Zagoni.

In addition to the 69 people killed and a large number of wounded, 22 Serbs went missing on that tragic Petrovdan /St Peter's Day/. Ten of them were accidentally found and exhumed on June 10, 2011, from a mass grave at Zalazje, during a search for the remains of killed Bosniaks. The remains of the victims were identified after more than a year and buried on Petrovdan in 2012, while two soldiers found decapitated at a landfill were exhumed, identified, and buried earlier. Ten missing persons have still not been found, and all trace of them was lost in the camp at the former Srebrenica police station. None of those taken prisoner survived, and no one has been held accountable for their killings. A liturgy will be served tomorrow at 08:00 at the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Srebrenica, and flowers will be laid at the memorial site in the cemetery in Bratunac and at the sites of suffering in Biljača and Sase. At 12:30, a memorial service will be held at the monument and ossuary in Zalazje for the Serbs killed on Petrovdan in 1992, as well as for all other Serb soldiers and civilians from this municipality who were killed in the Defensive-Patriotic War, and also for the victims from this village who were killed by the Ustaše on the third day of Holy Trinity Day in 1943. This will conclude the program of the memorial event "Petrovdanski Dani" /"St. Peter's Days"/, which is being organised in remembrance of the fallen Serbs under the slogan "34 Years of Crimes Without Punishment". As part of the event, a religious service is scheduled for this evening at the church in Srebrenica, along with a concert by singer Anđela Kulić and the lighting of Petrovdan lilas /torches/. Tomorrow, a mini football tournament will be held near the church in Toplica in memory of Priest-Martyr Boban Lazarević, who was killed by Muslim executioners while performing a religious service on July 5, 1992, in Krnjići. Continuing the systematic, planned, and continuous ethnic cleansing of Serb areas that had begun in April, numerous Muslim forces from Srebrenica, under the command of Naser Orić, raided several Serb villages in the municipalities of Srebrenica and Bratunac on July 12, 1992, killing, looting, and setting fire to everything in their path. No one has yet been held accountable for these, as well as many other mass crimes committed against Serbs from Srebrenica and the Middle Podrinje region.