The 700 engraved stones of the Mostar Partisan Memorial Cemetery have been destroyed by vandals, Bosnian media report.
The Yugoslav Partisan Necropolis in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, commemorating anti-fascist fighters who died in World War II, was attacked by vandals.
On Wednesday, Bosnian media reported that all 700 engraved stones in the partisan memorial cemetery had been smashed.
Historian Dragan Markovina from Mostar posted photos of the damage on Facebook and said “not even in the middle of the [1990s] the war, the local fascists destroyed the partisan cemetery as completely as they have done today.
“They would write offensive graffiti, crush several markers, but such a systematic crushing of each of the more than 700 memorial markers dedicated to the young dead of Mostar has not happened. [until now]“Said Markovina, quoted by the Bosnian media Klix.
“It couldn’t have been done by two, three, five drunk people. It’s obviously part of some idea or plan or organization – it’s as clear as day,” he said. -he declares.
The vandalism was widely condemned by various political parties in Bosnia and international institutions, including the EU delegation.
Mostar Mayor Mario Kordic said the city would help repair the damage.
All 700 commemorative plaques in the partisan cemetery of #Mostar were demolished last night.
This is not the work of “vandals”, but a well-planned crime organized by neo-fascists.
“The partisan cemetery suffered less damage during the war,” historian Dragan Markovina told Klix. pic.twitter.com/vnINHNqtVR
— Samir Beharić 🇺🇦 (@SamBeharic) June 15, 2022
He wrote in a Facebook post that while “the city administration is preparing projects for the protection and revitalization of all cultural monuments, a group of vandals are systematically destroying them.”
Kordic said the city of Mostar “does not have jurisdiction over the police or national monuments”.
The memorial cemetery is one of the largest anti-fascist monuments in the Balkans, but for years it has been the target of right-wing vandals, who have previously spray-painted hate messages on the markers.
It was designed by famous Belgrade architect Bogdan Bogdanovic.
Markovina said the Alliance of Antifascists and others have called on the mayor and local council to set up a security service, which already exists about 150-200 meters away in the city park where “there is no there is nothing to destroy.”
“[The park] has a 24 hour security service, there are people who take care of the watering. It enjoys continuous protection and the National Cultural Monument has nothing, but it is constantly the target of vandals. It is a political decision and it is something that the city of Mostar, those who run it, refuse to do,” Markovina said.
Zeljko Komsic, a Bosnian Croat member of the Tripartite Presidency, wrote in a Facebook post that the vandalism was a consequence of “HDZ politics”, referring to the Croatian nationalist party.
Mostar has remained an ethnically divided city since the end of the war in December 1995, with one side of the city largely inhabited by Bosniaks and the other by Croats.
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