News | Serbian Unity Congress

The bridge over the Drina (wfm.org)

The organization’s director confirmed this Tuesday, the AP reported.

The Mehmed Paša Sokolović bridge is the second monument in Bosnia that UNESCO has recognized, after the Old Bridge in Mostar.

The structure is considered a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture and engineering but also lies near the site of war crimes committed during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

The 589-foot (around 177 meters) bridge has 11 stone arches and was built at the end of the 16th century in the eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad, agency said.

Grand Vizier Mehmed Paša Sokolović - a Bosnian-born Orthodox Serb, taken by the Ottoman Turks as a child to become a janissary - ordered the construction of the bridge.

UNESCO has recognized its “outstanding universal value,” UNESCO Director Koichiro Matsuura said in Sarajevo, where he was presenting authorities with a certificate on the listing of the bridge.

“Its cultural value transcends both national and cultural borders,” he said.

The bridge connects the two banks of the Drina, which throughout history has marked the border between Serbia and Bosnia.

Bosnian Serb writer Ivo Andrić, who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for literature, wrote a book called “The Bridge over the Drina,” which described the building of the bridge and life in Bosnia under the Ottoman Empire.

During the 1992-95 war, Višegrad was a site where war crimes were committed by Bosnian Serbs against the town’s Muslim population. The AP said that some 3,000 Muslim Bosnians were killed, including 121 children adding that Višegrad is now a Bosnian Serb town.

During Tuesday’s ceremony in Sarajevo to mark the bridge’s listing as a World Heritage Site, Bosnian President Haris Silajdžić said that those who survived that part of the bridge’s history “deserve our respect.”

Matsuura’s visit to Višegrad was canceled for security reasons, however, after The Association of Women Victims of War - a mainly Muslim Bosnian group - placed a memorial placard on the bridge to remember the war victims.

The World Heritage List includes 851 properties that UNESCO deems worth preserving for their cultural or natural value. Sites on the list are eligible for funding and technical assistance from UNESCO to help with protection and preservation.