prijava
SARAJEVO, February 5 (FENA) - Sarajevo today remembers all those who gave their lives for freedom and the homeland, but also the horrific crime at the Markale market in Sarajevo, when 68 people were killed and 142 were wounded on this day, 25 years ago.
The joint commemorative session of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, the City Council and Municipal Councils in the Sarajevo Canton, today marked the anniversary of the massacre at the Markale market and the Day of Remembrance for all the killed citizens of Sarajevo.
Bogić Bogićević, a former member of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, said in his address today that he is paying honors to all the victims in Sarajevo during the period of aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1992 to 1995.
“The Belgrade regime and Slobodan Milošević, on behalf of the Serb people and together with the Yugoslav People's Army turned weapons against their own people, and thus wrote the most shameful pages of their history, doing mass killings and destroying Sarajevo,” said Bogičević.
Pointing to the fact that the war crimes are being falsified today, disputed, denied and politicized, and that to be indifferent to all of it, means to be an accomplice, he believes that the truth is merciless and that none can escape it.
Those on whose behalf these war crimes were committed and those who should face their past, pray for forgiveness, who should experience a catharsis that is not coming, they must know, Bogičević said, that no one is humiliated with repentance and that the pride of one people cannot be built on lies.
He recalled that on this day, 5 February 1994, a mortar shell fired from the direction of Mrkovići killed 68 and injured 138 civilians.
The Sarajevo siege that lasted for 1,425 days was one of the longest in the history of modern warfare. It lasted eight times longer than the battle for Stalingrad and a year and a half longer than the siege of Leningrad - said Bogičević, reminding that 329 mortar shells were fired on Sarajevo on a daily average during the siege. A record of 3,777 shells that were fired throughout the city targeting its citizens was recorded on 22 July, 1993.
Bogičević stressed that what Sarajevo had survived represents a disgrace of civilization and the whole democratic world, in particular Europe, and he emphasized that the citizens of Sarajevo were never humiliated. The world just kept sending humanitarian aid as if we were in a state of natural disaster, earthquakes, floods, or fires.
Bogičević underlined that the victims must not be forgotten, not let then die for the second time, and to be thrown into the abyss of oblivion. The least what we can do is to encourage the memory and forever to be known who and why had suffered and whose lives were taken.
"This remembrance of the past is in fact our lesson for the future, for a life that can always bring about some new and great temptations,” concluded Bogićević.
The commemoration was attended by a large number of individuals from BiH's political, diplomatic and cultural life.
During the siege of Sarajevo, 11,541 people were killed, of whom 1,601 were children. More than 61,000 people were injured, of whom 15,000 children.
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(FENA) S. R.
