Even 30 years later, the residents of the village of Brežani near Srebrenica cannot forget June 30, 1992. On that hot day in June, the Muslim soldiers from Srebrenica carried out a horrific attack on this little, undefended village.

The beasts in the shape of humans then committed a never before seen massacre, killing anything that moved — women and children, the old and the young, not even the animals were spared.

32 Serbs were killed in the attack by the Bosniaks from Osmače on the village of Brežani on June 30, 1992. Vidoje Lazić was nailed to a cross in the middle of the cillage, and his 80-year-old mother Dostana and his blind sister Kristina were burned alive in their home. Milisav Rankič and his two sons Miroslav and Dragoslav, as well as Stanko Milošević, were killed on their doorsteps.

The remains were never found. Around 4 o’clock in the morning, around 1,000 armed soldiers from Srebrenica descended on this small, ethnically Serbian village, which had survived for weeks surrounded on alls ides. With the chants “Allahu Akbar”, “Takbir” and “Kill women and children”, the Muslim soldiers began their blood-soaked feast.

The Muslim soldiers were accompanied by Muslim women and civilians who banged on pots, sang and made noise to confuse and further terrorize the residents, and they also participated in looting the Serbian properties and burning the village.

32 civilians of the Serbian nationality were killed on that day, including three children. None of the local residents were carrying rifles nor were soldiers, they were all elderly people, most of them infirm, then children, and older women. This village had been cut off and surrounded on all sides with Muslim villages. All of the victims were killed in an extremely savage and cruel manner — massacred, burned, crucified, body parts cut off.

The oldest victim of the massacre was an old man, 90-year-old Stanko Milošević, who was massacred on his own doorstep. The youngest of the victims was an 8th grade student, Ljubomir Josipović, who literally had the top of his skull blown off by a burst shot. He was 14 and a half years old.

Still, 55-year-old Vidoje Lazić suffered the saddest death. The Muslim soldiers first beat and mistreated him, and then they nailed him to a cross and burned him alive. His sister and his paralyzed mother were also killed. The poor Vidoje was subjected to horrifying and unimaginable torture. In the words of the surviving witnesses, the screams and shouts of the poor Vidoje could be heard in the neighboring village. The eyewitnesses also stated that the Muslim soldiers had encountered Vidoje in front of his home, where he said to them “Don’t break things, here’s the keys, burn it if you want, if there is anything to burn”. Vidoje said that trusting the Muslims to not hurt him, as he had worked alongside them for years and he was certain that they would not hurt him, because he had never made any trouble for them — he had spent his entire life with Muslims in the Drina company in Srebrenica. He had helped many of them several times in his lifetime. However, the yesterday’s neighbors had forgotten about all of the humanity of the Serbs from Brežani, and paid them back in the cruelest way imaginable. They were only guilty of their Serbian nationality.

Vidoje’s paralyzed 79-year-old mother Dostana Lazić and his blind 57-year-old sister Kristina were also killed in Brežani on that day. Both of the women were first tortured and then burned in their own home. The 50-year-old housewife Mileva Stjepanović was captured and then massacred. The criminals’ bullets forever ended the lives of 36-year old Radosava Stjepanović and 38-year-old Milojka Mitrović. Two old men were killed in the same attack, 79-year-old Radovan Petrović and 62-year-old Milivoje Mitrović, but also almost the entire Rankić family: 45-year-old father Milisav and his two sons, 17-year-old Dragoslav and 20-year-old Miroslav. 36-year-old civilian Miloš Novaković was also killed on his doorstep, the criminals beheaded him. An underage boy, 17-year-old Vidoje Milošević was killed on that tragic day in June along with his 90-year-old grandfather Stanko.

Rabija from Srebrenica recounted how the Muslims, upon returning to Srebrenica, said that they had only found a single defective rifle there, that there had been no weapons or army in Brežani, just the civilians, which clearly speaks to the intentions and the character of this monstrous crime. All of the homes in the village were looted and burned that day.

The criminals did not spare the Orthodox cemetery either. All of the gravestones at the cemetery were broken, and several of the graves were desecrated. After the liberation of Srebrenica in 1995, several thousand Serbian civilians had an opportunity to return to their homes, from which they were violently exiled three and a half years prior. Many items were found then in Muslim houses and apartments, such as tractors, jewelry, clothing, appliances, which had been owned by the killed and exiled Serbs from Brežani and other Serbian villages, and looted by Orić’s soldiers and civilians during their criminal raids in 1992.

Unfortunately, as far as the Court and Office of the Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina are concerned, it is as though these crimes never even happened. Despite numerous pieces of evidence and eyewitness statements, even after 30 years nobody has been processed or convicted of crimes against the Serbs.

Why are the Office of the Prosecutor and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina protecting the monsters who had, wearing the uniforms of the “Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, killed children, burned women and old people, raped, slaughtered, crucified? The question lingers with the families of the victims to this day. Naser Orić, Zulfo Tursunović, Hakija Meholjić, Akif Ustić, and Huso Halilović participated in the attack on Brežani. Among others, Rešad Halilović, Kadir Alić, Osman Zukić, Akif Jatić and Vehbija Jakić, whose father had been an Ustasha in the previous war, were also spotted, according ot the book “The Chronicle of Our Cemetery” (orig “Hronika našeg groblja”) by our renowned historian Milivoje Ivanišević.