Bosnia’s Serb Presidency member Milorad Dodik said that preserving the “precious peace” was a priority and that he believed all nations in the region were aware of that.

Speaking at the commemoration for victims of the WWII Jasenovac concentration camp on Sunday, Dodik said it was important to honour the sites of suffering while not being disturbed by other nations.

“We come to Donja Gradina to pledge to permanent peace. We don’t come here to pledge to new conflicts and wars, but to peace. I trust in the awareness of the nations in the region towards preserving of precious peace,” he said.

“We don’t mind Bosniaks or Croats, but sites of our suffering must serve as a warning and pledge for the future,” said Dodik, adding that Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-dominated region, has this as a priority.

“We won’t harm other peoples but we won’t neglect ourselves either,” he added.

Dodik made the statement in Donja Gradina, located on the Bosnian bank of the Sava River, where the Serb entity authorities have been marking for years “the day of remembrance for the victims of the Ustasha genocide in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH)”.

Donja Gradina is considered the part of the World War II Jasenovac camp where the most executions took place from early 1942 to April 1945. Due to its importance, in the period from 1983 to 1991 the site was part of a single memorial complex which then became divided by the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As every year, the anniversary was attended by Republika Srpska and Bosnia’s state officials as well as foreign ambassadors in Bosnia, including Head of European Union Delegation, Johann Sattler, US Ambassador Eric Nelson, Russian Ambassador Petr Ivantsov and others.

Citizens were not allowed in the ceremony due to the measures and recommendations that were introduced to prevent the coronavirus spread.

Serbian representatives were not able to attend the event due to the pandemic and they laid the wreaths in Sremska Mitrovica.