Brcko Bridge Blast Deaths Commemorated in Bosnia

Local organisations and families of victims marked the anniversary of the deaths of around 100 civilians in April 1992, when Bosnian Serb forces blew up a bridge over the River Sava – a crime for which no one has been held responsible.

People paying tribute to the killed civilians on the bridge in Brcko that was blown up in 1992. Photo: Center for Non-Violent Action

This year’s commemoration of the April 30 1992 Brcko bridge massacre was organised by the Association of Families of the Missing, Forcibly Taken away and Killed Bosniaks of Brcko District of BiH and the Association of Families of the Missing, Forcibly Taken away and Killed Croats in collaboration with associations for helping victims and survivors of sexual violence and detainees.

It was also attended by former members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ARBiH, the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, the Bosnian Serb Army, VRS, and peace activists from the region.

According to the Center for Non-Violent Action, CNA, a peacebuilding organisation founded in 1997 in Sarajevo, most of the victims got caught on the bridge when attempting to enter Bosnia from Croatia at dawn on April 30, 1992.

“The bridge had previously been mined and damaged. The civilians waited in Gunja [Croatia] for the curfew to end so they could walk across the bridge early in the morning. The bridge was blown up just before 5 a.m. while a convoy of civilians was crossing it, as the Croatian authorities had allowed them to cross the bridge around 15 minutes before the curfew expired,” it recalled.

“The killed people came from various parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which made it more difficult to determine the exact number of casualties. The fact that their bodies ended up in the Sava river further complicated the search for the missing,” it announced, adding that more than a hundred civilians who found themselves on the bridge at that moment were killed.

Ramiz Ahmetovic, president of the Association of Families of the Missing, Forcibly Taken away and Killed Bosniaks of Brcko District, said that although 29 years had passed, no indictment had been filed for this crime and the victims were not sure now whether it would happen.

“If things continue in this way, I am certain the families will not live to see justice, they will die out. The question arises as to who will need justice. Only history will need it, to register it, so people know what happened,” Ahmetovic said.

A Bosnian army war veteran and member of the Center for Non-Violent Action, Adnan Hasanbegovic, said the families of the missing needed more help from state institutions in searching for the remains of their lost loved ones, calling on prosecutors to finally do something to prosecute those responsible.

Davorka Turk, of the Center for Non-Violent Action, expressed hope that an initiative would be made to mark the suffering on the other side of the bridge, too, in Gunja, Croatia, from which the unfortunate people had departed to their death.

Former VRS member Sinisa Mijanic from Samac said that on April 30, 1992, innocent civilians and people on the bridge, on their way home, or on their way to their families, were killed, adding that most of those who got killed in the 1992-5 war were innocent civilians.

Organized by the Center for Non-Violent Action, war veterans from the region have so far attended commemorations in various places in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

They have taken pace at Gornji Vakuf, at Kota 715 near Zavidovici, at Stog near Vozuca, at Novi Grad/Bosanski Novi, Sanski Most (Hrastova Glavica), at Sijekovac near Brod, at Lanista and Boderiste near Brcko, at Trusina near Konjic, at Ahmici near Vitez, at Grabovica near Mostar, at Skelani near Srebrenica, Brisevo and Zecovi near Prijedor, at Koricanske Stijene, Stupni Dol near Vares.

They have also taken place in Serbia – at Grdelicka Klisura near Leskovac, Varvarin near Krusevac, Aleksinac, and in Croatia, at Pakrac, Varivode and at Gosic, near Knin.