Locals in the south-western Serbian area of Sjeverin commemorated the killing of 17 Bosniaks 26 years ago, committed by members of the Bosnian Serb Army.

On October 22, 1992, members of a Bosnian Serb unit stopped a bus passing through the area and rounded up 17 Bosniaks, took them to a place near the town of Visegrad and tortured and killed them at the shore of the Drina river.

The commemoration took place near a monument erected for the victims next to the motorway and was attended by the victims’ families, representatives of Serbia’s Islamic Community, representatives of the local government, political parties from Priboj and human rights NGO’s.

Hanka Dautovic lost her youngest brother, Zafer Hadzic, in this massacre.

“I am not asking for anything other than the bones of my brother. We want to bury them as is fitting,” she said, holding a photograph of her late brother taken during the torture and adding that five presidents have already been promising that his remains will be found, but that it never happened.

Zineta Hodzic’s husband is another victim of the kidnappings and killings. She said she believes that “most likely, nothing will happen regarding the search for the remains of the victims.”

“The digging up of the Perucac lake was stopped. That means it was not in someone’s interest to reveal any of this. They were not the only ones, thousands of corpses were thrown into the Drina river,” she said.

Those who attended the gathering threw flowers into the nearby Lim river, paying their respects to the victims and praying for them.

Four members of the Bosnian Serb unit were sentenced for involvement in the massacre in Belgrade in 2005.

The Commander of the unit, Milan Lukic, was sentenced at the war crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague to life in prison for crimes committed against Bosniaks in Visegrad but has not faced justice regarding the crimes in Sjeverin.

A complaint the Sjeverin victims’ families submitted in 2007 was rejected with the explanation that the case is not under the jurisdiction of Serbia as the kidnapping took place on Bosnian territory.

The families also complained to the European Court for Human Rights, which is still considering the case.

The remains of only one of the victims have been found so far.