Located within the borders of
the former Yugoslavia, Sanjak is a province with a surface area of 8687 km2 that is
surrounded with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the north, Srbije in the east, Kosovo in the
south and Montenegro in the east. The Ottomans dominated it in the century XV and Turks
had settled in this region thereof.Upon the wars in 1877-78, the province
Sanjak was temporarily given to the Empire of Austria-Hungary. Afterwards, Turks suffered
from the genocide imposed by the Srbije and Montenegro upon the encouragement of Russia in
the century XIX. As a result of the tortures, ethnical discrimination and the forced
migration, the Sanjak Turks started to immigrate to Turkey.
Upon the death of TİTO
in 1980, Yugoslavia entered into the process of dissolution. When it was dissolved in the
year of 1991, the massacre of Turkish people re-emerged in the province of Sanjak upon the
tortures applied by the Srbije and the Montenegro.
Nowadays, there are
350.000 Muslim people living in this province that reflect the Turkish-Ottoman character.
Against the struggles among the Srbije- Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Turks
and Muslims have established the “Sanjak National Muslim Assembly” and they try to
protect their rights therewith. However, the brutality of Srbije and Montenegro has not
come to an end in Sanjak. Their primary and fundamental purpose is to frighten, intimidate
and kill the Turks and Muslims and force them to migrate.
Despite all these
events, Sanjak Turks have decided to live on their own homelands and to continue their
struggles. They permanently state that they do not have an intention to abandon these
lands that were watered with the bloods of their ancestors despite the threat of the
Serbian bayonets.
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