Konjević Polje ( sr-cyrl, Коњевић Поље) is a village in the municipality of

Bratunac Bratunac ( sr-cyrl, Братунац) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013 census, the municipality has a population of 20,340 inhabitants, while the town of Bratunac has a population of 8,359 inhabita ...

, in the

Drina Valley Podrinje ( sr-Cyrl, Подриње) is the Slavic name of the Drina river basin, known in English as the Drina Valley. The Drina basin is shared between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, with majority of its territory being located in Eastern B ...

of northeastern

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

. It practically merged with the neighboring village of ''Konjevići''.

Bosnian War

During the

Bosnian Serb Army The Army of Republika Srpska (; ВРС/VRS), commonly referred to in English as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of Republika Srpska, the self-proclaimed Serb secessionist republic, a territory within the newly independent Bosnia and Herz ...

's campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1992, Konjević Polje became cut off from the main area of the Bosnian government-held territory and was part of the enclave of

Srebrenica Srebrenica ( sr-cyrl, Сребреница, ) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, with its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War in 1995, Srebr ...

. The expulsion of the

Bosniaks The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...

from the area along the

Drina River The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long river in the Balkans, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Al ...

had been the publicly proclaimed goal of the

Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, ; also referred to as the Republic of Srpska or Serb Republic) is one of the two Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other bein ...

from the start of the war. Two of the “strategic objectives or priorities of the

Serb The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history, and language. They primarily live in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

people in Bosnia and Herzegovina" were to "Establish state borders separating the Serb people from the other two ethnic communities" and "Establish a corridor in the Drina River valley, that is, eliminate the Drina as a border separating Serb states." In his 25 November 2003 statement to the Office of the Prosecutor at the

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

, the Bosnian Serb war criminal Miroslav Deronjić affirmed that goal and referred to it as "liberation". He described the "liberation" of the area of Eastern Bosnia along the Drina corridor as involving a two-part plan devised in 1991 and 1992, involving the Bosnian Serbs first taking power in the municipalities in the Podrinje and then expelling the Bosniak population by force, specifically by forcibly transferring the women and children and often detaining and killing the men. In the so-called "Deronjić Statement", he specifically referred to the "liberation of Konjević Polje" (paras. 154, 156). During the Bosnian Serb Army offensive of early 1993, the villages of Konjević Polje and

Cerska Cerska ( sr-cyrl, Церска) is a small town in the municipality of Vlasenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina located 12 kilometers from the town of Vlasenica itself and 11 km from the Serbian border. According to the 1991 census, Cerska had a tot ...

were captured. Their Bosniak residents fled to Srebrenica and added to the town's already overcrowded refugee population. Refugees from Konjević Polje and Cerska were sheltering in the Srebrenica elementary school when it was shelled on 12 April 1993. After the fall of Srebrenica, the road between

and Konjević Polje was a key place in which the Bosnian Serb Army forces attacked and broke the column of refugees fleeing towards government territory. Many of the refugees were captured and killed in nearby locations. The school in Konjević Polje was used to hold detainees before their execution.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Konjevic Polje Villages in Republika Srpska

Bosnian War

See also

References