Markale, 5 February 1994: A Single Shell on the Sarajevo Market

A Market in a Besieged City

The Markale market is located in the very centre of Sarajevo, in the Centar municipality. Throughout the siege of the city, which lasted from 1992 to 1995, it remained a place where people came to buy or exchange the little food and goods that could be found. According to the genocid.ba portal, the VRS fired on the market almost daily during the siege.

Saturday, 5 February 1994

On Saturday, 5 February 1994, after almost two years of siege, the market was full of people around noon. Between 12:10 and 12:20, a 120 mm mortar shell fell among the stalls. It was a conventional, factory-made shell.

According to the genocid.ba portal and Radio Free Europe, 68 people were killed in the attack and 144 were wounded. The judgment of the ICTY in the Galić case states that more than 60 people were killed and more than 140 wounded.

The Victims

The genocid.ba portal publishes a list, by name, of those killed at the Markale market on 5 February 1994. According to that list, the dead include: Senad Arnautović, Ibrahim Babić, Mehmed Baručija, Ćamil Begić, Emir Begović, Vahida Bešić, Gordana Bogdanović, Vaskrsije Bojinović, Muhamed Borovina, Faruk Brkanić, Sakib Bulbul, Jelena Čavriz, Almasa Čehajić, Zlatko Čosić, Alija Čukojević, Verica Ćilimdžić, Smilja Delić, Ifet Drugovac, Dževad Durmo, Fatima Durmo, Kemal Džebo, Ismet Fazlić, Vejsil Ferhatbegović, Dževdet Fetahović, Muhamed Fetahović, Ahmed Fočo, Majda Ganović, Isma Gibović, Rasema Hasanović, Alija Hurko, Mirsada Ibrulj, Mustafa Imanić, Rasema Jažić, Razija Junuzović, Hasija Karavdić, Mladen Klačar, Marija Knežević, Selma Kovač, Ibro Krajčin, Sejda Kunić, Jozo Kvesić, Numo Lakača, Ruža Malović, Jadranka Minić, Safer Musić, Nura Odžak, Mejra Orman, Hajrija Oručević, Seid Prozorac, Smajo Rahić, Igor Rehar, Rizvo Sabit, Zahida Sablja, Nedžad Salihović, Hajrija Smajić, Emina Srnja, Džemo Subašić, Šaćir Suljević, Hasib Šabanović, Ahmed Šehbajraktarević, Bejto Škrijelj, Junuz Švrakić, Pašaga Tihić, Munib Torlaković, Ruždija Trbić, Džemil Zečić, Muhamed Zubović and Senad Žunić.

The Investigation

A local investigation team arrived at the scene of the attack at about 13:20 and worked for approximately a week. The ballistic reports were prepared by, among others, Mirza Sabljica, Hamdija Ćavčić and Berko Zečević; Zečević later testified before the ICTY. The attack was also investigated by UNPROFOR. A UN report of 15 February 1994 established the direction from which the shell had come, but stated that the exact firing position could not be determined.

Denial and the Judicial Truth

For years, the Serb side claimed that the Bosniaks had fired the shell at themselves. Radovan Karadžić repeated even in court that the "Muslim side" was responsible for the attack.

The ICTY established otherwise. On 5 December 2003, the ICTY Trial Chamber in the case against Stanislav Galić, commander of the Sarajevsko-romanijski korpus of the VRS, concluded beyond reasonable doubt that the shell was deliberately fired from territory under the control of that corps. The Chamber found the thesis that the Armija RBiH deliberately fired on its own civilians to be unacceptable. The ICTY Appeals Chamber upheld the judgment on 30 November 2006 and sentenced Galić to life imprisonment.

Radovan Karadžić, President of the RS, was convicted, among other things, for the shelling of Markale on 5 February 1994; in March 2019, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) sentenced him by final judgment to life imprisonment. Ratko Mladić, commander of the Glavni štab VRS, was convicted at first instance before the ICTY in November 2017, among other things, for both massacres at Markale, and in June 2021 the IRMCT upheld his sentence of life imprisonment by final judgment.