KOVIĆ: IT IS TERRIBLE THAT KILLERS OF SERBIAN CHILDREN ARE CELEBRATED TODAY AS SHAHEEDS

BELGRADE, JULY 27 /SRNA/ - Historian Miloš Ković stated to SRNA that the murder of twelve-year-old Slobodan Stojanović, committed by Elfeta Veseli, testifies that the crimes against Serbian children in the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ were, unfortunately, repeated in the war in BiH, especially in Podrinje.

"The execution sites of the Serbian people throughout the NDH, which also include the territory of today's Republika Srpska, are primarily the execution sites of children," Ković said on the anniversary of the suffering of the boy Slobodan, who was brutally murdered at the end of July 1992 by a member of the Army of BiH, Elfeta Veseli. Ković said that this also applies to Garavice, Stari Brod, Jasenovac, and other execution sites, pointing out that the Ustashe NDH differed from other Nazi-fascist creations in that it had camps for children, namely Jastrebarsko, Sisak, and Stara Gradiška, but also other places. "Children were killed en masse in them, that is, left to die without food and without basic medical care, and the ways in which they were killed are also horrific and completely bestial," Ković stated. He pointed out that this, unfortunately, also happened during the Defense-Patriotic War, and was confirmed precisely in Podrinje, alongside other parts of Republika Srpska. "It all repeated itself. What is terrible is that many of those killers, especially in the municipalities of Srebrenica, Milići, and Bratunac, are celebrated today as shaheeds /martyrs/ and as innocent victims," Ković said. Ković stated that this is terrible, but that it must be fought against in reasonable and rational ways, primarily through days of remembrance for innocent Serbian children. "This is the task of experts, historians, psychologists, and psychiatrists, who will in the future have the task of explaining such horrors. Of course, it is up to Republika Srpska and Serbia to prevent something like this from happening again," Ković emphasized. He said that in every concern for the security of Republika Srpska and Serbia, the most important rule must be - never again. "Our enemies must never again lay their hands on our children, as happened from 1941 to 1945 and from 1992 to 1995, especially in Podrinje," Ković stressed. Ković said that the genocide against Serbs in the NDH is probably the most terrifying traumatic experience of the Serbian people, not only in its recent but also in its entire history, and that within the history of that Ustashe genocide, committed by Croatian-Muslim Ustashe, the mass killing of children represents the most horrific part. "It is difficult to explain why this happened. A mind trying to be reasonable cannot explain it. This is certainly a job for experts, psychiatrists, and social psychologists, but historians must state that this is exactly what happened," Ković said. Slobodan Stojanović was killed in July 1992 by Elfeta Veseli, a member of the Sabotage Platoon of the Command of Joint Units of Liplje and Kamenica of the so-called Army of BiH, when, after fleeing with his parents, he returned to his village of Kamenica to fetch his dog. For the brutal murder of the boy, Veseli was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the first-instance proceedings, only for the Appellate Division of the Court of BiH to increase the sentence to 13 years in a second-instance verdict handed down in December 2019.