Serb authorities in Bosnia-Hercogovina have been ordered to pay $42 million to local Muslims for the destruction of mosques during the Bosnian civil war.
All of the 16 mosques in town of Banja Luka of the Serb-run Rebpublika Srpska were destroyed during the 1992-1995 war. Hundreds of religious buildings were additionally destroyed, in addition to mass Muslim casualties.
The ruling comes nine years after the Bosnian Islamic Community sued the Bosnian Serb government; a lawyer for the area’s Muslim community said that the verdict was of historic importance. “For us, what is far more important than material compensation is that for the first time Republika Srpska has taken complete responsibility for the destruction of the mosques,” SRNA news agency quoted the Islamic Community’s lawyer Esad Hrvacic as saying.
