SARAJEVO
Citizens of Bosnian capital Sarajevo marked Wednesday the 18th anniversary of one of the biggest massacres committed during the siege of the city in the Bosnian War between April 1992 and December 1995.
"Every year, on this day I come here, where my mother was killed. I was wounded later on the same day on my way to the hospital when I was looking for my mother. Even today, I am still dreaming about that day in August 1995," Amra Topcagic, who lost his mother Halida in the massacre, told the Anadolu Agency.
Nermin Crncalo also lost his mother 18 years ago.
"I still feel the same pain and the emptiness," he said.
On August 28, 1995, a mortar bomb exploded in the main market square in Sarajevo killing 43 and wounding 75 people.
"There is no consolation for the families of those who were killed, not even after so many years," Zeljko Komsic, the Croat member of the Presidency of Bosnia&Herzegovina, said during commemoration ceremony. "But it is more important to bring those responsible for this and other crimes before courts."
"After so many years, Bosnia is a peaceful country that wants to join the EU and NATO, but the people who committed this crime are still free. However, I am certain that justice will be served. Eighteen years is a long time, like an entire life [...] But to seek justice always means a lot," Komsic concluded.
The shelling of the Markale town market is one of the crimes former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic is charged with in his trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
For the Markale massacre, the ICTY sentenced Dragoslav Milosevic, commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, to 29 years in prison, among other charges.
