Sarajevo Marks 20th Anniversary of Market Massacre

Sarajevo residents mourned and laid wreaths on Wednesday at the scene of the carnage 20 years ago when the marketplace was hit by a mortar shell which killed 67 people and wounded more than 140 more.

One of those who lost a loved one on February 5, 1994 was Jasmina Prozorac, who told BIRN that she could still remember every detail about the day when her husband died.

“He came from the frontline that morning around seven… He was nervous, like he felt something. He kissed me a few times while we were drinking coffee,” Prozorac said, adding that he then left for the city centre.

The mortar was fired from a position in the hills above the city held by the Bosnian Serb Army’s Sarajevo-Romanija Corps at around noon.

Prozorac said that she found out what had happened to her husband when she saw images of the aftermath of the attack on television.

“The TV reports showed them [bodies] in the trucks like they were bags. I was overwhelmed by fear, uncertainty. Then I saw his gloves and his tool on the screen. I knew then. You just feel it,” she recalled.

“My two brothers-in-law went to identify him. The younger one could not recognise him immediately… He was hit, they say, in the legs, he bled out… Later I saw the footage from the hospital, they were pulling him, they were holding him under his armpits, and a huge trail of blood was left behind him,” she said.

Twenty years after the massacre, only one person has been finally convicted of the attack – Stanislav Galic, commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, who was jailed for life by the Hague Tribunal.

Responsibility for the massacre is also among the charges against Bosnian Serb military and political leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who are currently on trial at the international court.

Bosnian courts however have not prosecuted anyone for the attack.