Autopsy findings reveal tragic details about Jablanica disaster: 20 victims killed by mud and rocks, not water

Photo:Mateja Beljan

Forensic experts from Trebinje and Foca, Dr. Drazen Damjanjuk and Dr. Boris Pejic, have identified 20 people who died in the catastrophic floods in Jablanica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and performed autopsies on their bodies.

Recommended

"None of them was a case of classic drowning, instead they all died from their earth and mud that blocked their throats, or they suffered mechanical injuries, severe fractures from rocks and other material that fell on them," said Damjanjuk, confirming that neither he nor his colleague found that any of the victims they examined had drowned.

Damajnjuk and Pejic worked on a list of missing people from Jablanica, Damjanjuk performed an autopsy on a couple who were found embraced, Pejic on the body of a 7-month-pregnant woman, and both say that although they had worked on many difficult cases in the past, this time there were a lot of difficult emotions.

"The two of us processed eight bodies from one family, where only one little boy survived, all of this is very shocking, but that's our job," said Dr. Damjanjuk.

A detail metioned by Dr. Damjanjuk also speaks to how physically and mentally difficult it was to do this work.

"How much soil and mud was on the corpses is perhaps best shown by the fact that it took my assistant half an hour to prepare one for the autopsy," says Damjanjuk.

(Telegraf.rs/Nezavisne)