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The 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of 116 Bosniak civilians who were killed by members of the Croatian Defence Council in an attack on April 16, 1993, in the village of Ahmici near Vitez, was marked Sunday by family members and numerous delegations. The murderous operation was called “48 hours of ashes and blood.”
In the early morning hours, on April 16, 1993, special purpose units of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), “Jokers” and Maturice, attacked the village of Ahmici. The call to the Muslim morning prayer was the signal for the attack.
One of the surviving witnesses of the crime, Adnan Zec, shared his experiences at the commemoration of this crime on Sunday. He was a 13 at the time of the crime.
“Ahmici, April 16, 1993, and the operation ‘48 hours of ashes and blood’ is the place where my 13-year-old childhood disappeared forever. My family was killed there and innocent Bosniak families were killed and burned with the intention of exterminating them forever. I was woken up by the shooting, my two sisters and I asked my parents what was going on”, Zec said at the beginning of his speech.
“Criminals set fire to our house, we tried to put out the fire but we failed. We went outside and saw our neighbours killed and Croat soldiers standing next to them. Only 20 meters away at the house of the neighbour Husein, there were three soldiers with Croatian insignia.
He saw the soldiers and ran to them.
“I ran to them and unaware of what was happening, they asked me: ‘Where are you going, kid? Where are you going?’ I said I was running because there was a shooting, and they told me I had to go back. As soon as I turned my back, two volleys were fired at my back. Out of two bursts, two bullets hit me. As I fell, I watched my parents run towards me, my father begged them to kill him and leave my mother and sisters alone. They didn't listen and instead said three times: ‘Kill them!’”
The words still echo in his head, he said.
“Today, 30 years later, those words still echo in my head. I'm still watching my parents fall while the gunfire is ringing in my ears. At that moment I was more unconscious than aware of the fact that I was completely alone at that moment. Light rain continued to fall that day as if it tried to put out the flames from the houses that were systematically set on fire. Children's cries, moans and tears could still be heard.”
Zec recalled how he hid for eight days, wounded, after the massacre.
“For eight days I hid wounded and watched the horrors and devastation of the village and I thought I was the only survivor. I wondered if there was any point in living alone in this world. For eight days I shed blood and watched people, women and children moan. I couldn't help them. I fell unconscious, and when I woke up it was hard for me to be the only survivor. This is only part of the horror that befell us, residents of Ahmici,” Adnan Zec said in an emotional address.
One of the participants in the Ahmici commemoration was the International Tribunal for War Crimes Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) President Santana who pointed out that the attack on Ahmici was part of a campaign aimed at ethnically cleansing this part of Bosnia from Bosniaks.
“The most terrible example of man's inhumanity to man. It is everyone's duty to accept what happened. There is no other way forward,” she concluded.
Graciela G. Santana ICTY: Napad na Ahmiće bio je dio kampanje s ciljem da se ovaj dio etnički očisti od Bošnjaka. Najstrašniji primjer nečovječnosti čovjeka prema čovjeku. Dužnost je svakoga da prihvati šta se desilo. Drugačije se ne može naprijed.#Ahmići @N1infoSA pic.twitter.com/7ai2Hb4BIq
— Tina Jelin-Dizdar N1 (@tinajelindizdar) April 16, 2023
Ahmici trials
The youngest victim of the crimes in Ahmici was a three-month-old baby, Patria reports. The ICTY ruled that the murders in Ahmici were crimes against humanity, Patria media outlet reports.
One of the HVO commanders, Dario Kordic, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Zoran, Mirjan and Vlatko Kupreskic were sentenced from six to ten years in prison for their participation in the crime but were acquitted by a new verdict in 2001.
Kordic, who was serving a 25-year sentence in an Austrian prison for crimes in central Bosnia, including crimes in Ahmici, was released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
The Hague Court also sentenced Miroslav Cicak Bralo, a former member of the HVO special unit “Jokers”, to 20 years in prison.
Pasko Ljubicic was sentenced to eight years in prison, and after serving two-thirds of the sentence he was released.
Tihomir Blaskic was sentenced to nine years in prison and was released after serving eight years and four months.
