Defense of Foča

When Bosnia and Herzegovina formally declared independence on 6 April, on the same day Serbs from Foča took control of the main municipal buildings, including the police station, and declared their affiliation with Republika Srpska and independence from the government in Sarajevo. Fighting that began in the city on the evening of 8 April,^[5][6][7] moved to the hydroelectric power plant area on 9 April, and as in Zvornik, the Serbs issued an ultimatum, demanding the TORBiH lay down their weapons. They ignored it, and that evening Serb fighters began shelling the city with Howitzers. The fighting took place in the predominantly Muslim suburbs (Donje Polje, Aladža).^[5][8]

Full control of Foča came on 14 April, when Serbian forces managed to drive Muslim snipers out of the skyscrapers (from which Muslim snipers controlled the entire city) with concentrated artillery fire. After the fall of the settlement of Donje Polje, where the strongest resistance was offered, the Muslim defenses began to collapse, and by 17 April most of the Muslim forces had abandoned the city, including a large part of the civilian population.^[9][10]

The capture of Foča was a major success for the Serbs in their offensive in Podrinje, but battles still had to be fought with sabotage by several Muslim groups scattered throughout the city. It was not until late July that Serbian fighters managed to fully secure the area, following this many crimes against Muslims and Croats were committed by forces under command of Arkan and Vojislav Šešelj.^[11][1]

In the following days, two VRS tactical groups were formed in Višegrad and Foča, which actively participated in the battles for the Trnovo-Goražde corridor, which the Muslims were trying to establish. The fighting in Podrinje in 1992 spread to the triangle between Rogatica, Višegradand Goražde, along both banks of the Drina.^[12]

The Gornja Josanica massacre^[13] took place in December 1992. The Višegrad Brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina committed a war crime against Serbs, mostly civilians, in the village of Gornja Jošanica near Foča. 56 villagers were killed, many of them in a gruesome manner, by cutting off body parts. Among the victims were 21 women and three children, who had come from Foča the previous day with their parents to celebrate St. Nicholas Day in the village. About a dozen hamlets of Gornja Jošanica in the municipality of Foča were wiped off the map, not only houses but also auxiliary buildings were burned down, along with the weak, livestock were also killed, and where they managed to do so, the criminals even cut down fruit trees.^[14]

The VRS also committed serious and brutal crimes including killings, mass rapes, and the deliberate destruction of Bosniak property and cultural sites in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, with 2,707 deaths and over 21,000 Bosniak Muslims being displaced.^{[10][15][16][17]}