Author: Edvin Kanka Ćudić
Ana and Vasilj Lavrov were arrested in October 1993. They were Ukrainians by ethnicity, married and living in Sarajevo. They were executed by the members of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In November of the same year, they were exhumed from the pit in Kazani and buried as unknown persons on the cemetery of St. Joseph. Five years later, they were re-exhumed and transported to East Sarajevo. They were identified in May 2004. She was from Maglaj and he was from Prnjavor. Ana was 51 years old and Vasilj was 60 years old when they died.[1]
Ergin Nikolić was a soldier of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He disappeared in August 1993 and has never been found. Zoran Vučurović, born in Kosovska Mitrovica in 1952, is still missing, too. He disappeared during Orthodox Christmas of 1992. He was executed in the location of Bostarić-Curinje Njive. His body was doused in gasoline and set on fire, but his mortal remains will probably not be found in Kazani. Should they be exhumed, it will probably be in some other location.[2]
Even 32 years after the execution of Mušan Topalović Caco, the number of victims in locations Kazani, Gaj, and Grm maline is not final. When it erected the monument, the City of Sarajevo decided to ignore the requests of the civil society. Everything was done to reduce the number of Serbs killed in Kazani.
Victims were exhumed in three locations in 1993 and subsequently buried on the cemetery St. Joseph. There are still mortal remains waiting to be identified. According to the data of the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the number of identified victims killed in Kazani increased to 17 by 2025. Out of this number, 12 are men and 5 are women. All sixteen persons had a connection to re-exhumations on the cemetery of St. Joseph.[3] Only Marina Komljenac was exhumed directly from the pit in Kazani.[4]
And no matter how much persons insist on presenting this as a thing of the past, massacres committed at the foot of the Sarajevo city mountain remind us that facing the past is not done by imposing a stone monument. Families of persons who were executed, but also inhabitants of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian capital, need much more. A promise, an apology, a memory and a reminder that crimes will never happen again. This matters in times of growing populism. While we are merely getting by and witness discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, gender or race, but also feel it ourselves. Only because one belongs to a minority. And not belonging to the majority means that others continuously mark one based on their name, origin, skin colour or sexual orientation.
Some victims, who would otherwise be forgotten, became again the focus of public attention following the publication of a book about Kazani by UDIK, the Association for Social Research and Communications.[5] One of them is Stevo Drakulić. He was born in Korenica in 1939 and disappeared from the prison Čengić Vila-Aneks in August 1992. His mortal remains were exhumed on the cemetery of St. Joseph in November 1998. He was identified on September 3, 2010. Leposava and Duško Pešić, mother and son, were also among the victims. Just as Stevo, they were also killed in Gaj.[6]
A total of six victims were found in this location. Four men and two women. Branka Mrđa, killed in the same location, was identified on July 1, 2022. Mladen Mrđa was identified on the same day. Both of them were taken from Tome Masarika street in Sarajevo on June 26, 1992. Kosta Đurad, born in 1929, was taken from the same address. His body was exhumed from the cemetery St. Joseph on November 26, 1998.[7]
Slobodan Minić was found in the third location, Grm maline. He was born in Ljubljana in 1946. He was taken from his apartment in Nikole Kašikovića street on July 7, 1992. His body was re-exhumed from the cemetery St. Joseph in November 1998 and he was identified in March 2004.[8]
There is no need to point out that the monument constructed on the slopes of Trebević by the former mayor, Benjamina Karić, does not provide sufficient information. It does not offer the context of the events. Furthermore, it does not even contain the full list of names of victims found in this location. The name of Miodrag Vučurović is not on the list. His mortal remains were identified in 2024 and 2025.[9] Branislav Blagojević is also not on the list. He was found with Dragomir Ćeranović in a vehicle inspection pit on Boguševac.[10] Victims found in Gaj and Grm maline do not exist in the public space. The presence of their names on the monument could not even be discussed. All this shows that, in spite of all characteristics of a multi-ethnic city ascribed to the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the city has not yet faced the crimes committed by Mušan Topalović and soldiers of the Tenth Mountain Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
UDIK insisted several times on marking the location of re-exhumation on the cemetery of St. Joseph. The location in which Caco’s victims rested for a certain period in the history of Sarajevo. The memorial plaque should include the victims of all three locations, and not just victims killed in one of these locations.
The wish to put up a memorial plaque does not mean advocating for a mere stone plaque that will be forgotten. It would be a vow that history is for the first time truly the teacher of life. That the capital distanced itself from the past that has been haunting it for more than thirty years. Because future cannot be built only on formality. It has to be authentic and anti-fascist. If not for us, then at least for the generations that will bravely walk in this country in the future.
[1] Ćudić, E. K. and Tripić, V. ur. 2025. Kazani: Suđenja, (re)ekshumacije, memorijalizacija. (Kazani: Trials, (re)exhumations, memorialisation.). Sarajevo: UDIK, p. 145-146. and 149.
[3] Ibid. p. 145-153.
[4] Ibid. p. 146.
[5] The publication published by UDIK, the Association for Social Research and Communications, in 2016 was entitled Ratni zločin na Kazanima: presude (War Crime in Kazani: Judgments). The second edition was published in 2020. The book that contained the names of the victims became an invaluable document at the moment when the monument was erected in Kazani.
[6] Ćudić, E. K. and Tripić, V. ur. 2025. Kazani: Suđenja, (re)ekshumacije, memorijalizacija. Sarajevo: UDIK, p. 151-152.
[7] Ibid. p. 150-151.
[10] Ibid. p. 152.
