Ethnic groups in the Balkans

The Bosnian state court announced on Thursday that its appeals chamber has sentenced Srecko Acimovic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army Zvornik Brigade's Second Battalion, to seven years in prison for aiding and abetting the genocide of Bosniak men from Srebrenica in July 1995.

The trial of Goran Viskovic for crimes against humanity in the Vlasenica and Milici areas in 1992 and 1993 opened on Wednesday at the B osnian state court in Sarajevo.

Relatives of the Bosniaks and Croats killed at the Koricani Cliffs by Bosnian Serb forces will mark the 29th anniversary of the massacre on Saturday by throwing roses into the deep mountain pit where their loved ones' bodies were dumped after they were killed in 1992.

The Bosnian state court on Thursday rejected a request from Croatia to remand Vinko Martinovic, alias Stela, in custody after his arrest the previous day on an international arrest warrant for committing a murder in 1996.

Jovanovic was sentenced in late April in the first instance to a year in prison for inciting ethnic hatred; Nilevic has been charged with the same.

On opposing sides of an ideological divide, Jovanovic and Nilevic are part of an alarming war of words playing out on social media in Montenegro, a war that took off in 2019 but has intensified since an earthquake election last year.

Three years ago, Albania declared the village home to an ethnic Bulgarian minority.

Some were nonplussed. The village has rich traditions of its own but no visible connection with Bulgaria, though many are Gorani a Slavic Muslim community that straddles Kosovo, North Macedonia and Albania and whose language is Slavic.

A Turkish group called Cyber Warrior Tim Akincilar hacked the Serbian Public Debt Administration's website on Friday in what appeared to be a protest against Serbia's denial of the Srebrenica genocide.

The Cair municipality in Skopje has announced ahead of the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide on July 11 that it will soon install a memorial commemorating the victims of worst atrocity in post-World War II Europe.

Acting on its own initiative, Bulgaria's prosecution service has instituted six case files after the US Treasury Department and State Department announced on Wednesday that they are sanctioning a total of six Bulgarians over their involvement in significant corruption.