ROAD SIGNS "ROAD OF SERB STARI BROD ON THE DRINA VICTIMS" BEING INSTALLED

ROGATICA, NOVEMBER 5 /SRNA/ – Road signs bearing the inscription "Road of the Serb Stari Brod on the Drina Victims" are being installed at five locations in the municipality of Rogatica in memory of the 6,000 Serbs from the Sarajevo-Romanija region who were killed by Ustasha forces headed by Jure Francetić during World War II.

The signs are being installed at Ivan Polje, near the Zvornicanka shopping centre, Lijeska, Perčin and near Stari Brod, announced the public utility company Vrela Seljani in Rogatica. Road signs marking the "Road of the Serb Stari Brod on the Drina Victims" had previously been installed at several locations along the Lapisnica–Rogatica road section /Lapišnica–Ljubogošta–Podromanija–Rogatica/. Istočno Sarajevo Mayor Ljubiša Ćosić previously told SRNA that the road section had been named the "Road of the Serb Stari Brod on the Drina Victims" to serve as a permanent reminder to travellers of the suffering of the Serb people and attempted eradication of the Serb people from the area on the left bank of the Drina, as well as the price paid for their survival. Ćosić says the project has been implemented with the approval of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Republika Srpska Roads Company, as well as the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Hrizostom of Dabar-Bosnia. He noted that this memorial designation would remind every traveller passing along this road of the statistical fact that 3.21 million Serbs should have been living today in the territory formerly encompassed by the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/, on the left bank of the Drina, whereas their number today is slightly less than one million. "Every kilometre from Lapišnica to Rogatica serves as a warning of the price of freedom and reminds us that the path along which we walk freely today bears the footprints of our people, who were driven towards the Drina with the aim of systematically eradicating everything with Serb prefix," Ćosić pointed out. Ustasha units headeded by Francetić launched an offensive in the spring of 1942 with the intent of expelling and killing the Serb population in eastern BiH in order to achieve their objective of establishing the NDH border along the Drina. The massacre took place on the banks of the Drina, in the villages of Stari Brod and Miloševići. During the Ustasha offensive, more than 6,000 unarmed Serbs, all civilians, from the areas of Sarajevo, Sokolac, Olovo, Kladanj, Rogatica, Han Pijesak and Višegrad were brutally killed as they attempted to cross the Drina River and seek refuge in Serbia. Some people drowned in the Drina while fleeing the Ustasha forces. The largest-scale killings took place on March 22, 1942, but the massacres continued until early May of that year.