Bratunac
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Bratunac (Serbian Cyrillic: Братунац) is a town located at the east border of Bosnia, southwest of the Drina river and north of Srebrenica. It is administratively part of the Republika Srpska.
In 1381, the name Bratunac is mentioned for the first time because of the direct road through Bratunac from Bosnia to Serbia. At the time, Bratunac was composed of five houses and a population of roughly 30 people. In 1927, Bratunac became an independent municipality for the first time.
In the census of 1991, there were 33,375 inhabitants of Bratunac municipality of which 21,564 were Bosniaks (64.2%), 11,479 Serbs (34.2%), 41 (0.1%) Croats and 491 (1.5%) were classified as others.
Systematic ethnic cleansing in 1992 and beyond uprooted the Bosniak population of Bratunac. Following this, Bosniak homes were looted of all valubles and then burned to the ground. Furthermore, everything and anything associated with Bosniaks(Bosnian Muslims) and other non-Serbs was completely destroyed. According to the current data, 3,156 Muslims .
The ethnic cleansing campaign was successful and has resulted in an almost exclusively Serb town of Bratunac, since the town was settled with the Serb refugees from Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, the town and the surrounding villages are believed to be a stronghold for nationalism and extremism and the area is believed to have harboured several war crimes suspects.
In spite of everything, a Bosniak survivor by the name of Muhamed Ahmić, who is the leader of the local Red Crescent is one of the people trying to rebuild the destroyed Bosniak parts of town. The process is very slow and with many problems among them is harassment and sometimes physical assault. However, the last couple of years have seen a few Bosniak refugees return to the remains of their demolished homes.
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