Bosnian Serbs commemorate those killed and expelled from Croatia

In the town of Gradiška on the border of Republika Srpska with Croatia, mourning events were held to mark the 25th anniversary of the expulsion of the Serbs from Croatian Western Slavonia and the massacres committed by the Croatian army.

Serbian media reported this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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The mourning events on the banks of the Sava River were attended by Serbian member of the BiH Presidency Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska Zeljka Cvijanovic, Minister of Labor and Veterans and Disabled Affairs Dusko Milunovic, Mayor of Gradiska Zoran Adzic, representatives of organizations of Serb refugees from Croatia.

Participants launched wreaths in memory of the dead refugees, not all of whom managed to cross the Sava border between the Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia, the western part of which was destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1995 during the Croatian Operations Lightning and Storm.

And then they laid flowers at the memorial to those killed during the forced exodus from Western Slavonia, which was part of the RSK.

“We vow to defend the freedom of the Serbian people,” Milorad Dodik said at the event. – Only where we have a state can we talk about preserving the Serbian people. We have no right to forget that the Serbs were forced by military aggression to leave their centuries-old homes in Western Slavonia. The genesis of the suffering of the Serbs in the vastness of Croatia began a long time ago, when the Military Krajina was formed (in the 16th century - ed.), to protect Europe and its values ​​(from the Turks - ed.). And now the concepts that BiH imposes on us are mainly anti-Serbian. Defending freedom and homelands, the Serbs in BiH wanted their own power, but, unfortunately, after the signing of the Dayton Agreements, we were subsequently deprived of those freedoms that were implied by this agreement.”

Milorad Dodik gives an interview on the bridge over the Sava River, along which Serbian refugees from Croatia fled from death in 1995

Dodik also noted once again that the institution of the High Representative, the Western overseer for BiH, is an organization hostile to the Serbs and the RS. Therefore, the Serbs can only rely on themselves.

Operation Lightning to clear Western Slavonia took place in early May 1995 and provoked a mass exodus of Serbian refugees, whom Croatian troops shot at point-blank range with MLRS, artillery, aircraft, snipers and small arms. In total, 283 Serbian residents were killed during the operation, among whom were 57 women and 9 children, and about 18 thousand people became refugees.

"Lightning". Croatian militants burn the Serbian flag

The Argentine, Jordanian and Nepalese UN contingents located in the conflict territory did not offer serious resistance to the aggressor.

The Croatian military personnel who participated in the operation were awarded state awards.

And in August of the same year, Zagreb carried out Operation Storm, following a similar scenario, which finally destroyed the western part of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Its eastern part was reintegrated into Croatia by UN decree in 1998, which led to partial assimilation, systematic violation of rights and a gradual outflow of the local Serb population.