Vitez massacre (1993)
| Vitez massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Croat–Bosniak War | |
  | |
| Location | Vitez, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Coordinates | 44°9.51′N 17°47.31′E / 44.15850°N 17.78850°E |
| Date | 10 June 1993 09:45 (Central European Time) |
| Target | Croats |
Attack type | Mass killing |
| Deaths | 8[1] |
| Perpetrators | Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) |
The Vitez massacre was the killing of eight Bosnian Croat children by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) on 10 June 1993, during the Croat–Bosniak War.[2]
Background
[edit]War broke out between Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, supported by the Bosnian Mujaheddin[3] and the Croatian Defence Forces. It lasted from 18 October 1992 to 23 February 1994,[4] and is considered often as a "war within a war" as it was a part of the much larger Bosnian War. Fighting soon spread to Central Bosnia and soon Herzegovina, where most of the fighting would take place in those regions.
Massacre
[edit]On the morning of 10 June 1993 between 8:00 and 9:45 a.m.,[5][6] a shell was fired from ARBiH positions and landed next to a playground with 15 children on it.[2][5] Five children were killed on impact while three others died after being hospitalized with serious injuries.[2][5] Six other children were injured.[2] No service was able to catch the massacre in video.[5]
No one has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).[2][6][7] A disputed fact is that the children who died played with Muslim children on a daily basis, who did not come to play on the day of the massacre. Therefore, it is suspected that they were warned about a probably planned attack.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ Schindler 2007, p. 99.
- ^ a b c d e "Playground Shelled, Eight Bosnian Children Killed, and No One Prosecuted". Balkan Insight. 2020-09-14. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ "(IT-01-47) HADŽIHASANOVIĆ & KUBURA. The Prosecutor v. Enver Hadžihasanović and Amir Kubura" (PDF).
- ^ "Bosnian War European history [1992–1995]". Britannica. Archived from the original on 14 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ a b c d "muslimanski_zlocini_nad_hrvatima". www.hous.hrvati-amac.com. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ a b Redakcija (2021-06-09). "Uz tužnu obljetnicu: Priča o zaboravljenim žrtvama, osmero djece na igralištu u Vitezu". Vitez.info (in Croatian). Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ a b "Što Tužiteljstvo BiH čeka!?". 2016-03-23. Archived from the original on 2016-03-23. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
Sources
[edit]- Schindler, John R. (2007). Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad. New York City: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0-76-033003-6. Archived from the original on 2022-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-27.