Talk:Brčko bridge massacre

Factual accuracy?

I came across this article Brčko bridge massacre when patrolling. Various seemingly reliable sources are reporting commemorations of it but oddly enough I could not find any reports on this massacre besides the commemorations. It seems like if you killed 100 people in 1992 there would be some contemporary news coverage, ICTY ruling, or mentions in history books but I wasn't seeing it. (t · c) buidhe 08:56, 2 November 2021 (UTC) (t · c) buidhe 08:59, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello Buidhe. I noticed the article as an addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject Croatia/Recent Articles and thought to look it up wondering if the title was right for it. Now that you brought it up here, I also thought to post links to sources for future development of the article if there are any takers later on:

Destruction of the bridge was documented in 1992 by Paul Harris here (p.116) Unfortunately I have no access to the source other than the snippet view available at Google Books to determine what exactly is said there.

A more detailed account is available here (pp.93-94). The Helsinki Watch reports there that the bridge connecting Gunja (Croatia) and Brčko (Bosnia and Herzegovina) was blown up at about 4:50am on 30 April 1992 as pedestrians were crossing from Gunja to Brčko. The source cites a witness (one of ten Croatian National Guardsman and five police manning the northern end of the 800-metre bridge at the time) that "two busloads" of people had just disembarked from buses that were bringing them home from their place of work in Germany and Austria and were walking across the bridge to Brčko after he had inspected their ID cards/passports. The source also notes that there was a lower number of involved people reported by contemporary Bosnian press (four people killed). The people had to walk to cross the bridge because it was previously (in 1991 if I recall correctly) damaged near the Croatian (northern) bank and vehicular traffic was impossible. The witness recalled that a car drove 100-150 metres onto the bridge from Brčko (from the southern bank) and exploded minutes later. The source also notes that at 10am of that day, the Yugoslav army (JNA) disarmed police in Brčko, and that Bosnian Serb forces captured the town the following day. The "following day" phrase is from the witness statement and it is unclear (to me) if it refers to 1 May or 30 April. In footnote 179 of the same source, it is said that the three "Bosnian militiamen" guarding the south end of the bridge were injured, arrested, and taken to an unknown location by a group of men wearing camouflage uniforms moments before the explosions that took out two bridges. (There were in fact two bridges - the other was a nearby railway bridge.) They were released the next day. Unfortunately nothing is said about the identity of the attackers. The information in the footnote also comes from the Bosinan press report published on the day of the attack - and short period between the attack and the report would explain paucity of information.

Edgar O'Ballance here (p.34) notes "two serviceable frontier bridges" were destroyed on 30 April between Gunja and Brčko.

Muratović & Kuka here (p.25) also note the event and claims more than 100 killed on the bridge (I would interpret 100 as equal to "two busloads"). They claim that there were false rumors circulated in days before the event that Croatian regular troops and/or Croatian Defence Forces paramilitaries would come across the bridge intermingled with civilians. The source notes that fighting between city defences and Bosnian Serb forces started on 1 May.

A news report from 2020 here provides a photo of a damaged section of the bridge. It claims the Brčko police identified 12 killed and collected 9 different identity documents (ID cards or passports) on the bridge. They belonged to people who were presumed to be thrown from the bridge into Sava by the blast. The source speaks of 70-100 killed. It also notes that the railway bridge, located 1 kilometre downstream, was severely damaged by an explosion five minutes later, but that there were no casualties at the railway bridge. The source says that the attack was linked to Dragan Vasiljković-commanded Red Berets unit based on the witness testimonies of Bosnian Serb officials Đorđe Ristanić and Boško Maričić at the ICTY (in an apparently unrelated trial). The two were some sort of wartime officials in Brčko. According to the source, Brčko District prosecutor started proceedings against unknown perpetrator(s) in 2015. According to the source (published on 30 April 2020) Ristanić is on trial for war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (but it does not specify if the trial has anything to do with the bridge explosion).--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:09, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The photo from the report above seems to correspond to an ICTY photo here in terms of type and appearance of the bridge structure and appearance and orientaton of the destroyed bridge segment - although it appears that the two photos were taken from opposite banks of the river.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:21, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Cool, that dispelled any doubts about whether this was a real incident. Thanks! (t · c) buidhe 11:26, 2 November 2021 (UTC)