Commemoration held for Serbian embassy staffers

Commemoration held for Serbian embassy staffers

They were kidnapped in Sabratha, Libya, in November last year and died on February 19 during a U.S. air strike on a site where they were held hostage.

"After two years as minister of foreign affairs and everything that has been invested in securing their release, I realized that Sladjana had become a symbol for many MFA employees, those without whom neither high politics nor diplomacy could function, and who are practically unseen," Dacic said.

Speaking about Stepic, a driver, Dacic said he "built himself into our embassy in Tripoli during all those years and was a constant of that collective."

"They say he was a real Serbian and that there wasn't a single Serb in Libya who did not know of him," he said.

"The truth about their deaths will be determined, whether they were the target or just collateral damage," Dacic said, adding that "regardless of the results of this investigation, they became the victim of the times in which we live."

"It is not safe to walk the streets of Paris, Jakarta, Istanbul, because of terrorism. Serbia is seeking an explanation why exactly they have become collateral damage," said Dacic, while sending a public appeal "not to offend their memory by writing things which have nothing to do with reality."

The commemoration was also attended by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who, like Dacic, expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

The commemoration heard that the gathering today was paying tribute to the MFA employees who bravely lost their lives while serving our country.

Sladjana Stankovic joined the ministry's Liaison Service in 2000, and had been posted in Tripoli since 2006.

Jovica Stepic served at the embassy there since 1993.

Sladjana Stankovic's superior Miroljub Ivezic also addressed the commemoration, saying that the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications was "in shock and disbelief."

"Such a tragedy never happened before, we could not save our Sladja (Sladjana)," he said.

Ivezic noted that a large number of Serbian citizens who returned from Libya did so thanks to Sankovic's professionalism and courage, for which she received an award in 2011.