The first crimes against the Serbian population on the territory of the former Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were recorded in the summer and autumn of 1991. The first victim of these crimes, recorded in official data, was Anka Zec (1934), who was killed on September 13, 1991, around 1:00 PM, in the municipality of Bosanska Dubica, during shelling from the territory of Croatia. Only three days later, on September 16, 1991, in the village of Klakar Gornji, in the municipality of Bosanski Brod, around 7:30 AM, Vojislav Goranovi\u0107 was also killed by a shell fired from the territory of the Republic of Croatia. Both were civilian victims killed before war operations had even begun on the territory of BiH.<\/p>\n
On the other end of the territory, in the south of BiH, in the Trebinje area as well as in the Western Herzegovinian municipalities, the first serious conflicts on the territory of BiH occurred following the clashes between Croatian separatist forces and the JNA in Croatia. In the very first attack on Ivanica, in the Trebinje municipality, on October 1, 1991, nine JNA soldiers were killed. On that day and the following day, in the border territory of the municipalities of Trebinje and Dubrovnik, another 18 JNA soldiers were killed in the battles.<\/p>\n
The crime which, according to many researchers, marked the beginning of open conflicts as the culmination of the political crisis, took place half a year later in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, demonstrating to the Serbs that their national identity was an obstacle in a future independent BiH.<\/p>\n
On March 1, 1992, the second day of the unconstitutional Muslim-Croat referendum\u2014which ignored the declaration of the Serbian people to remain in Yugoslavia\u2014and the referendum on the so-called independence of BiH, a murder occurred in Ba\u0161\u010dar\u0161ija, in the old part of the city, when Muslim extremists attacked a Serbian wedding party. On that occasion, near the Orthodox church\u2014one of the oldest religious sites in all of BiH\u2014Nikola Gardovi\u0107, the father of the groom, was killed. According to his own later admission, he was killed by Ramiz Delali\u0107 \"\u0106elo,\" a member of the paramilitary secessionist Muslim forces, who was later rewarded by the highest Muslim leadership. This murder triggered a large-scale crisis and the first barricades, heralding open conflicts in the city of Sarajevo.<\/p>\n