Photo: Adam Jones, Ph.D., Wikimedia Commons

This article was first published by Raskrinkavanje.ba (Bosnia and Hercegovina), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.

The massacre at Sarajevo’s Markale marketplace, in which 68 people were killed, is a documented war crime for which court verdicts have been issued. Despite this, the anniversary of the massacre in February this year was once again accompanied by media denial of the crime.

Photo: Adam Jones, Ph.D., Wikimedia Commons

On February 5, 2025, the 31st anniversary of the massacre at the Markale market in Sarajevo was commemorated. In this massacre, a mortar shell explosion killed 68 people and wounded 140. As in previous years, the anniversary prompted some media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region to publish articles denying the responsibility of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) for this massacre and claiming that it was staged.

The news agency Srna published two articles on this topic, one on February 4 and another on February 5.

“MARKALE ONE” – A CRIME ATTRIBUTED TO SERBS WITHOUT EVIDENCE (Srna, February 4, 2025)

“MARKALE” – A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF A FALSE FLAG OPERATION (Srna, February 5, 2025)

The article published on February 4 states the following:

At the Markale market in Sarajevo, on February 5, 1994, due to an explosion allegedly caused by “a single mortar shell”, 68 people were killed, and the Serbs were accused in order to, as it later turned out, force the withdrawal of heavy weaponry around Sarajevo.
The Serbian side denied responsibility, claiming that the tragedy was staged by the Sarajevo government under the control of SDA leader Alija Izetbegovic.
At the time, UNPROFOR commander General Michael Rose stated that it could not be determined where the shell had been fired from.
(…)
No independent investigation was ever conducted into this attack, nor into the explosion that occurred almost in the same place at the end of August 1995, which served as justification for massive NATO airstrikes on Republika Srpska.
Former UN special envoy Yasushi Akashi stated in 2011 that it was “unclear who committed the massacre at the Markale market in 1994”.

The article from February 5 contains nearly identical claims, supplemented by statements from Professor Dragan Kolev, who asserts that the Markale massacre was a “false flag operation”, meaning an attack carried out in a way that blamed the enemy side. He describes the genocide in Srebrenica and the massacre in Racak in the same way. He claims that the “staged massacre” was planned at the Pentagon and carried out by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), which then blamed the VRS, to pressure the international community into demanding the withdrawal of VRS heavy weaponry from around Sarajevo.

“There is ample evidence supporting the claim that everything was staged, but the other side finds it difficult to admit this because their entire narrative of a defensive war is based on the myth of ‘Markale’. The same story applies to Srebrenica. Muslims have written books about it themselves, but certain myths must be maintained to keep nations divided and filled with hatred, making them pawns for certain geopolitical interests”, Kolev stated.

The claims from these articles were republished by about a dozen other web portals in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region. An article published on the web portal Nova Srpska Politicka Misao on February 5, 2025, states that after the massacre, “a report sent to the UN headquarters suggested that the tragedy had been staged”.

Legally established Facts about Markale

Denying the Markale massacre is repeated annually in some media, and Raskrinkavanje has addressed this topic multiple times (1, 2, 3). The phrase “Markale – a crime attributed to Serbs without evidence” has been published before, mainly by Srna.

It is not true that responsibility for the Markale massacre was “attributed” to the VRS without evidence. For the crime committed on February 5, 1994, former President of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic and Commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps (SRK) Stanislav Galic were both sentenced to life imprisonment by final judgment.

An article from the web portal Detektor on war crimes prosecution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, published in February 2023, explains that these verdicts were handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, based on facts established through investigations.

According to court rulings, the mortar shell was fired from SRK positions in Mrkovici. The Tribunal in The Hague was presented with evidence, SRK orders, and expert analyses, showing that the Seventh Battalion of the First Romanija Infantry Brigade of the SRK had 120mm mortars stationed in Mrkovici, located north-northeast of Markale.
In the final verdict against Galic, the ICTY confirmed that the 120mm mortar shell fired at the Markale market on February 5, 1994, was “beyond a reasonable doubt deliberately fired from SRK-controlled territory”.
“The majority believes that the claim that the Bosnian Army forces would target, as would be the case here, their own civilians is not only unreasonable but also contradicts the established legally relevant facts”, the same verdict states. Regarding the 1994 Markale massacre, it further states: “This incident represents an example of shelling where civilians were deliberately targeted”.

The ruling also details that in the trial against Galic, 171 witnesses were heard, and 1,268 pieces of evidence were presented, including 603 by the prosecution, 651 by the defense, and 14 by the Tribunal itself.

An analysis conducted by Raskrinkavanje, published on January 19, 2018, explained the reasons behind Galic’s 2003 sentencing (a ruling confirmed in 2006).

In determining the facts, the court examined the findings of a “local investigative team that arrived at the market at 1:20 p.m. on the day of the explosion” and whose “investigation lasted approximately a week”. The trial chamber also reviewed “separate reports from expert members, including ballistics experts Mirza Sabljica, Hamdija Cavcic, and Berko Zecevic”. Additionally, the court considered reports from “UN military observers and members of Team 4 from the French UN battalion”, as well as findings from another UN team that continued “previous (UN) investigations”, focusing “on crater analysis and technical aspects of the explosion”.

Thus, it is not true that this crime was “attributed” to the Army of Republika Srpska without any evidence or that an independent investigation was never conducted. The court proved beyond any doubt that the shell fired at Markale came from VRS positions and that it was a deliberate attack on civilians.

The article published by Srna misleadingly presents statements by former UNPROFOR commander Michael Rose and former UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans Yasushi Akashi, claiming that both stated it was impossible to determine where the shell was fired from.

General Rose testified at Radovan Karadzic’s trial in 2010, stating that his position remained unchanged from 1994 to 2010, he believed the shell was fired from Serbian positions. He noted that the first report by French UNPROFOR forces suggested the shell was fired from Bosnian positions, but a second report from UN experts indicated it was more likely fired from VRS positions.

Akashi did state in 2011 that the Markale massacre was a “murky case” because the shell could have come “from either warring side”. However, as reported in an article published by Detektor in 2012, he later clarified in an interview with Serbian media that “his statement cannot change the facts established in The Hague Tribunal and will not influence ongoing legal processes”.

Claims that other massacres from the 1990s (the 1995 Markale massacre and the 1999 Racak massacre in Kosovo) and the Srebrenica genocide were staged or falsely attributed to Serbian forces are also completely unfounded. The facts and responsibilities for these crimes have long been established and proven, as Raskrinkavanje has also reported (1, 2, 3).

Therefore, the claims that responsibility for the 1994 Markale massacre was “attributed” to the VRS without evidence and that an independent investigation was never conducted are assessed as the distribution of fake news.

The claim that “the report submitted to the UN suggested that the tragedy was staged”, published on the web portal NSPM, is evaluated as a manipulation of facts, given that other reports and judicially established facts confirming that the VRS was responsible for the massacre were omitted.