Bosnia: an Orthodox bishop injured

A Serb Orthodox bishop was hospitalised on 16 July after having been attacked in his home by unknown assailants during the night at Bosanski Petrovac, in the west of Bosnia. “We found Bishop Hrizoston tied up. He had injuries to his head and all over his body”, said a local police source to the French AFP press agency. A spokesman of the Serb Orthodox Church confirmed to national radio that delinquents had repeatedly struck the bishop and demanded money from him. This is the most serious attack committed in the region against a representative of the Orthodox Church since the end of the war of 1992-’95. The town of Bosanski Petrovac, situated 200 km to the west of the capital Sarajevo, is located in the Moslem-Croat Federation which, together with the Serbian Republic, has formed Bosnia after the conflict. The civic authorities have declared that prior to the attack the house of Bishop Hrizoston was repeatedly assaulted but that the perpetrators were never identified. Of the 3.8 million inhabitants of Bosnia, some 40% are Muslims, 31% Orthodox Serbs and 10% Catholic Croats. These three communities waged a war between each other and now twelve years later incidents like this still explode among their members every so often.