Sarajevo commemorates this Friday the anniversary of the second massacre in the Markale market, a ceremony that takes place under the impact of the death of Ratko Mladic. That August 28, 1995, a bombing attributed to the Serb-Bosnian forces under the command of the now deceased general, the second attack against this enclave in less than two years, caused at least 43 fatalities and 75 injuries, and became a decisive precedent for the start of NATO bombings.
The Serb-Bosnian forces rejected any implication in the offensive and maintained that it was a setup. However, the Hague Tribunal ended up imposing life imprisonment on two high-ranking officials of the Republika Srpska, Stanislav Galic and Dragomir Milosevic, and a sentence of 29 years in prison for this attack.
The tribute event was attended by the president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Becirovic, and the mayor of Sarajevo, Samir Avdic, in a climate of tension following the death of Mladic, commander of the Serb-Bosnian forces and convicted of the genocide of Srebrenica, who passed away this Thursday at the age of 84.
"The death of our fellow citizens is a lesson never to forget what happened," declared the mayor of the Bosnian capital during the commemoration, reported by the newspaper 'Sarajevo Times'.