Vučić: "They planned a bleak fate for our people"; "We will save Serbia" PHOTO/VIDEO

Sombor -- Exactly 24 years ago, sirens announcing NATO aggression against Serbia were heard. In 11 weeks, about 2,500 civilians and 1,000 soldiers and policemen had died.

Source: B92 Friday, 24.03.2023. | 22:07

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In Serbia, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of NATO Aggression was celebrated, and the central manifestation attended by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, took place in Sombor.

"When we tell you what the red lines are, then don't mess up with them, because then you will get an answer. Our answer is that we will not give Serbia and we will never give it to anyone. Our people will live," concluded Vučić and thanked everyone for coming in Sombor.

"They planned a dark fate for our people. We should not have called this aggression. We started to raise the country. Our country is now the first in all parameters and it grows. Our country has started to remember," he added and thanked the president Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik.

He added that a difficult period is ahead of us.

“We will never give them our country on a platter along with justification for all the crimes they committed,” Vucic told the gathering and recalled that Serbs died along with Albanians and Bosniaks. “We have to respect the victims of others so that others will respect ours,” he said.

"I think it is our obligation to try to forgive. There will be respect for our country only when we admit that we are guilty of their killing us, when we say that Milica Rakić is collateral damage. This nation will live and this country will live. You won't knock it down and you won't break it," emphasized Vučić.

"I want to speak from the bottom of my heart and I want to say what I think and not let it go. 24 years ago, international law finally died. Since then, nothing that happens in the world can be worse than what they did to a small country. They managed to destroy much bigger countries than Yugoslavia, and then it was the turn of that disobedient Serbia to finally suffer and get what it deserves," Vučić began.

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Patriarch Porfirije: "We pray that our sufferings will not be repeated"

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"We experienced an inhumane and illegal aggression by the greatest force in history in the most one-sided conflict and unequal balance of forces on the battlefield ever. We must simultaneously draw strength from this collective remembrance to build a better future founded on mutual understanding, cooperation, and reconciliation", Patriarch Porfirije said.

“We should pray and fight to persevere on the path of the talks and negotiations, the path of dialogue whose goal is at least elementary understanding among people”, Patriarch said adding that everything should be done to keep the peace.

"We remind ourselves and others that our people and the whole world need peace the most, the awareness that there is a place for every soul under the kingdom of heaven. While cruise missiles raced through the surrounding roads to deliver their deadly cargo, we are doing the same thing today as we did then. Even then, the people of Sombor gathered on this square, which is not coincidentally called Saint George. They sent messages of peace and prayed for the same. We do the same today, we gathered to pray for those who were suffering. We pray even more fervently today because today in Europe, a military conflict is taking place that threatens to drag the whole world into a vortex and spill innocent blood", Patriarch Porfirije said.

"Let's build and keep God's peace within us. First with our loved ones, with everyone, and then we will be harbingers of peace. We pray that our sufferings will not be repeated. Let's do our best to be the last one at the table looking for a solution that will preserve peace not only for us but for everyone around us. If the spiral of evil is started again, there is no doubt that we will all be complete losers. I gazed at the cross on which Christ was crucified, on which hundreds of millions of people from all over the world and our nation, from the holy Prince Lazar to Radovan Medic, Milica Rakić, all the victims of that fateful year 1999, were crucified. We pray for all the innocent victims, our compatriots. May God forgive their souls and give them eternal rest. Yes, in health and joy, God willing, let us welcome the feast of victory and the resurrection of Christ. May you all be alive and well," concluded Serbian Patriarch Porfirije.

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