Clinical Center of Banja Luka and the Republican organization of families of captured and killed soldiers and missing civilians of Republic of Srpska, marked 18th anniversary, the Day when twelve babies died, by laying a wreath on the monument to 12 babies in the New Cemetery in Banja Luka, and by laying flowers at the memorial monument for the 12 babies in the center of the town.

Eighteenth Anniversary of the babies who died, was marked by serving the liturgy, lighting candles and laying wreaths and white roses at the memorial monument to 12 babies in Banja Luka in New Cemetery and on the Memorial monument in the city of Banja Luka. With the programme of marking the historical dates and events in the RS, 22nd of May was declared as the day of twelve babies who died from lack of oxygen during the war year, in 1992.

The wreaths at the memorial monument of 12 babies in Banja Luka, on behalf of the President of the Republic of Srpska Rajko Kuzmanovic, laid his advisor Duško Četković, the Chief of Cabinet of the President of RS National Assembly Perica Rajčević, Advisor to the Prime Minister of the RS Savo Lončar, on behalf of the management of the Clinical Centre of Banja Luka, managing director Prof. Mirko Stanetić, representatives of the Republican organization of families of captured, killed soldiers and missing civilians.
Željka Stubić from Prijedor, the mother of one of the babies, said that even today, after 18 years, every day is sad, for parents of the babies. Dr. Miloš Bajić, who was the head of the clinic of pediatrics in Banja Luka when 12 babies died, said that doctors tried to get the needed oxygen for the babies in different ways, but there was not any help.

Never to be forgotten… During the war in 1992, in the hospital, the department of intensive care, Clinical Center of Banja Luka, due to lack of oxygen that was necessary for adequate treatment, from 22nd of May to 19th of June 1992, 12 babies died. After 13 years of struggle with severe disease, died the thirteenth infant, Slađana Kobas.

The needed oxygen was impossible to deliver by land to Banja Luka because of the blocked road to Serbia. The only way for the oxygen to be delivered was to air, but because of the ban on flights over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Security Council, the plane that was supposed to deliver oxygen from Belgrade to Banja Luka, was not allowed to fly.

That sad period in our history will never be forgotten, and that is why we must build a future in which something like this must never happen to anyone. This tragedy wrote sad pages in the history of our hospital.
It is hard to describe this kind of suffering on paper, but it lives in our hearts and in the hearts of those fammilies who suufered that pain.
The street in Paprikovac, where the Clinical Center of Banja Luka is , in which died new born babies, is called “Twelve babies“.