Pig's head found in Bosnian Muslim cemetery

SARAJEVO — A pig’s head discovered in a Muslim cemetery in the ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar forced the cancellation of a memorial service on Monday, amid heightened tensions in the lead-up to a general election later this year.

Three decades after the country’s war, relations between Bosnia’s Muslims, Orthodox Serbs, and Catholic Croats remain tense — with incidents increasing ahead of key votes.

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On Monday morning, a group of Bosnian Muslims arrived at a cemetery to mark the anniversary of the 1992 formation of a Bosnian army brigade, in a Croat-majority neighborhood of the city.

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They found a pig’s head, an animal considered impure in Islam, sitting among the headstones.

The organizers cancelled the service, which was planned to commemorate the victims of the 1992-1995 conflict.

The police said they were investigating the incident.

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Mostar’s Croat-majority mayor, Mario Kordic, said he was “deeply concerned” by the act and condemned the “violation” of the cemetery.

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The Bosnian Muslim MP for the area Sanel Kajan said the situation was “unbearable” as the cemetery had been desecrated several times by graffiti and vandalism.

Although allied against the Serbs during the 1990s war, Croats and Muslims — sometimes referred to as Bosniaks –themselves clashed in a violent conflict that lasted 17 months (1993–1994), particularly in the Mostar region and in central Bosnia.

The Bosnian war claimed nearly 100,000 lives. /dl

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