12 babies died 1992 despite numerous pleas - Historum

Helios · June 13th, 2012, 03:51 PM

Croatian and Muslim armed forces blocked the "Posavski corridor" that connected Bosanska Krajina and Serbia. The corridor cut off Banja Luka from Serbia. Because of this, it was not possible to supply Banja Luka with oxygen by land. Only the air supply remained as an option, but it wasn't possible either because of a flight ban over Bosnia and Herzegovina, imposed by the United Nations Security Council. An airplane intended to fly from Belgrade to Banja Luka with oxygen supplies did not get clearance.
Numerous pleas for help were sent via radio, television, Voice of Srpska, and other newspapers, but although UNICEF and representatives of other international humanitarian organizations were familiar with the problem, the plane with oxygen had to wait for several days for the clearance to arrive, which never did. Shortly afterwards, 12 newborns died from hypoxia at the Banja Luka hospital. Even though the doctors tried to use "industrial oxygen" supplied by the Army of Republika Srpska and several contractors and citizens, it was not enough to save the babies.

Slađana Kobas; born on June 18, 1992 was the only baby that survived from May 22 to June 19, 1992. Because of the lack of oxygen, she had permanent eye, brain and lung damage, and later suffered from bone cancer. She died on February 9, 2006. aged 13. She was buried on February 11, 2006. in Prijedor.

Marko Medaković; born on June 21, 1992. After birth he was hypoxic for around 10 minutes, which caused the loss of the two thirds of his lungs, cerebral palsy, brain hematoma, and spine injury. Snježana Brezo made a documentary about him, which is to be screened on the Berlin International Film Festival.

This event granted great morality boost and led to the Operation Corridor which started June 14 1992 in which my father participated, operation started just 7 days after the last baby died and resulted in a great success connecting East and West part of the Republica Srpska.

Should someone be held accountable for not allowing airplane with oxygen to fly to Banja Luka?

Fire_Raven · June 13th, 2012, 04:44 PM

The only reference to flight bans over Bosnia that I find for that period was Operation Sky Monitor (in response to UN security council resolution 781) that just monitored violations of the No-Fly zones starting in mid-October of 1992 until April of 1993 when it changed to Operation Deny flight (resolution 816).

Not finding any flight bans over Bosnia at that time except the arms embargo for shipments coming from outside the former Yugoslavia.

Do you have any links to which flight ban this was?