The Markale massacres were two bombardments carried out by the Army of Republika Srpska[1][2] targeting civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War. They occurred at the Markale (marketplace) located in the historic core of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first happened on February 5, 1994; 68 people were killed and 144 more were wounded. The second occurred on August 28, 1995 when five mortar shells killed 37 people and wounded another 90. This latter attack was the stated reason for NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serb forces that would eventually lead to the Dayton Peace Accords and the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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| 1st Markale Market Shelling | |
|---|---|
| Location | Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Date | February 5, 1994 Between 12:10pm-12:15pm (Central European Time) |
| Target | Open air market |
| Attack type | Mortar attack |
| Deaths | 68 |
| Injured | 144 |
| Perpetrator(s) | Army of Republika Srpska |
The first massacre occurred between 12:10 and 12:15 PM, when a 120 millimeter mortar shell landed in the center of the crowded marketplace.[3] Rescue workers and United Nations (UN) personnel rushed to help the numerous civilian casualties, while footage of the event soon made news reports across the world.[3] Controversy over the event started when an initial UNPROFOR report claimed that the shell was fired from Bosnian government positions. General Michael Rose, the British head of UNPROFOR, revealed in his memoirs that three days after the blast he told General Jovan Divjak, the deputy commander of ARBiH forces, that the shell had been fired from Bosnian positions.[3] A later and more in-depth UNPROFOR report noted a calculation error in the original findings. With the error corrected, the United Nations concluded that it was impossible to determine which side had fired the shell.[4] In January 2003, the ICTY Trial Chamber in the trial against Stanislav Galić, a Serb general in the siege of Sarajevo, concluded that the massacre was committed by Serb forces around Sarajevo.[1] General Galić was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes against humanity during the Siege of Sarajevo.[1][2]
| 2nd Markale Market Shelling | |
|---|---|
| Location | Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Date | August 28, 1995 Appox. 11:00a.m. (Central European Time) |
| Target | Open air market |
| Attack type | Mortar attack |
| Deaths | 37 |
| Injured | 90 |
| Perpetrator(s) | Army of Republika Srpska |
The second massacre occurred about 18 months later, at around 11:00 AM on August 28, 1995. This time, five shells were fired, but casualties were fewer—37 dead and 90 wounded. Serbian authorities, as in the 1994 incident, denied all responsibility and accused the Bosnian government of bombarding its own people to incite international outrage and possible intervention.[5] A 1999 report to the United Nations General Assembly, UNPROFOR considered the evidence clear: a confidential report from shortly after the event concluded that all five rounds had been fired by the Army of Republika Srpska. As soon as technical and weather conditions allowed, and the safety of UN personnel traveling through Serb territory was secured, Operation Deliberate Force commenced.
Russian colonel Andrei Demurenko asserted that UNPROFOR's research was flawed, as it began from the conclusion that the shells were fired from Serbian positions and didn't test any other hypothesis; and that he, immediately visiting supposed mortar locations found that neither of them could be used to fire the shells. He concludes that Serbian forces were falsely blamed for the attack in order to give justification for NATO attacks on Serbs.[6][7][8]
David Harland, former head of UN Civil Affairs in Bosnia, claimed at the trial of General Dragomir Milošević in ICTY that he was responsible for the creation of the myth that UNPROFOR was unable to determine who had fired the mortar shells that caused the second Markale massacre. The myth that has survived for more than ten years, Harland said was created because of a “neutral statement” made by General Rupert Smith, the UNPROFOR commander. On the day of the second attack on Markale, General Smith stated “it is unclear who fired the shells, although at that time he already had the technical report of UNPROFOR intelligence section, determining beyond reasonable doubt that they were fired from VRS positions at Lukavica”. Harland’s responsibility lies in the fact that he himself advised General Smith to make “a neutral statement in order not to alarm the Serbs who would be alerted to the impending NATO air strikes against their positions had he pointed a finger at them”. That would have jeopardized the safety of UN troops in the territory under VRS control or on positions where they might have been vulnerable to retaliatory attacks by Serb forces.[9] In 2007, a Serb general, Dragomir Milošević, former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, was found guilty of the shelling and sniper terror campaign against Sarajevo and its citizens from August 1994 to late 1995. Milošević was sentenced to 33 years in prison. The Trial Chamber concluded that the Markale town market was hit on August 28, 1995 by a 120 mm mortar shell fired from the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps positions.[2]
In January 2004, prosecutors in the trial against Stanislav Galić, a Bosnian-Serb general, Sarajevo-Romanija Corps commander in the siege of Sarajevo, introduced into evidence a report including the testimony of ammunition expert Berko Zečević. Working with two colleagues, Zečević's investigation revealed a total of six possible locations from which the shell in the first Markale massacre could have been fired, of which five were under VRS and one under ARBiH control. The ARBiH site in question was visible to UNPROFOR observers at the time, who reported that no shell was fired from that position. Zečević further reported that certain components of the projectile could only have been fired from one of two places, both of which were under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska. The court would eventually find Galić guilty beyond reasonable doubt of all five shellings prosecutors had charged him with, including Markale. Although widely reported by the international media, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights noted that the verdict was ignored in Serbia itself.[3]
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