Dodik says RS will separate from BH if he is convicted

BOSNIA REPUBLIKA SRPSKA PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

epa11066339 President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik speaks at a parade to mark the 32nd anniversary of the 'Day of Republika Srpska', in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 09 January 2024. The self-proclaimed constitutional assembly of Bosnia's ethnic Serbs, passed on 09 January 1992 the declaration proclaiming the Republic of Serbs (Republika Srpska) within Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the intention of seceding from Bosnia and merging with neighboring Serbia. Only a few months later the war broke in Bosnia and Herzegovina claiming more than 100,000 lives and displacing more than two million people. The 1992-1995 war between ethnic Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs and Croats ended in 1995 by the Dayton Peace Agreement. The part of the peace solution was the administrative division of the Balkan country into two ethnic entities; the (Bosniak-Croat) Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Srpska Republic. Due to numerous atrocities that the Bosnian Serb troops committed against Bosniaks and Croats during the 1992-95 war, including the 1995 genocide in the country's eastern enclave of Srebrenica, Bosniaks have been strongly opposing the public celebration of the 09 January. In 2015 the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the Day of Republika Srpska unconstitutional; however, the binding decision had never prevented Bosnian Serb authorities from celebrating it. EPA/FEHIM DEMIR

foto FEHIM DEMIR