Tuzla residents, families and state officials mark anniversary of youth massacre

The date used to be marked in former Yugoslavia as Youth Day, which is why the city downtown was crowded with hundreds of Tuzla residents gathering who wanted to spend a sunny day in the open amidst the war, to get a day of “normal life.”

The joy was interrupted by shelling at 8.55 p.m. and replaced by deaths and sorrow. Those who survived have ever since been coping with consequences – both mental and physical.

29 years later, the families gathered at the memorial in the city downtown as they do every year to pay respects to those killed.

The representatives of the families laid the first flowers, and then the BiH Presidency Chair Denis Becirovic, BiH Presidency member Zeljko Komsic, the mayor of Tuzla Zijad Lugavic, representatives of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, members of the Tuzla City Council...

Bosnian state Court sentenced in 2010 a commander of the Army of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity Novak Djukic to 25 years in prison for ordering the shelling which, according to the indictment, killed 71 and injured more than 140 civilians.

The sentence was reduced in February 2014 to 20 years in prison after Bosnia's Constitutional Court established a wrong application of the law in Djukic's case. Djukic then departed to Serbia for, as his attorney said, medical treatment and has been unavailable to Bosnia's judicial institutions since then.