Grabovica marks 32 years since killing of Croat civilians in Bosnian war

During the attack, known as “Operation Neretva 93,” 33 civilians were killed, including 17 women and a four-year-old girl, Mladenka Zadro, who was shot in her mother’s arms on the doorstep of their home. The oldest victim was 87-year-old Marko Maric. According to survivors’ testimonies, autopsy findings from the Firule Clinical Hospital in Split, and later reconstructions, many of the victims were killed in an extremely brutal manner.

Seventeen victims remain missing, as they were thrown into the Neretva River, while only partial remains of many of the others have been recovered. Survivors and families of the victims, still disheartened, continue their search for truth and the remains of their loved ones, hoping for a more just response from the state.

To date, five members of the ARBiH have been convicted by Bosnian courts, but only for individual killings, not for crimes against civilians under the principle of command responsibility. Mustafa Hota was sentenced to nine years in prison, Enes Sakrak to ten years, while Nihad Vlahovljak, Sead Karagic, and Haris Rajkic each received 13-year sentences.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted Sefer Halilovic, former Chief of Staff of the ARBiH, of command responsibility for the massacre in Grabovica.