The 38-year-old Nizama Hećimović, killed by her former husband Nermin Sulejmanović in Gradačac last week, was buried in that northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina city on Monday, and the hundreds of people who attended her funeral later held a peaceful rally to send messages against domestic violence.

“Stop all forms of violence”, read a banner carried by the protesters in Gradačac, where the 35-year-old Nermin Sujemanović last Friday, after killing his former wife, killed two men and wounded two men and a woman before committing suicide.

Apart from Gradačac, protests were also held in Sarajevo, Zenica, Mostar, Tuzla, Goražde and some other BiH towns.

The protest in Sarajevo, which drew a large number of people, was led by BiH Presidency member Denis Bećirović, BiH Federation entity Minister of the Interior Ramo Isak, US Ambassador Michael Murphy, and Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karić, who read out the protesters’ demands to the authorities, one being to declare femicide a serious offence punishable with strict penalties.

Violence against women in BiH is a relatively frequent phenomenon with tragic consequences, but perpetrators usually receive relatively lenient sentences that do not correspond with the obligations BiH undertook by ratifying the Istanbul convention on the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence.

This has proven to be true also in the case of Nizama Hećimović, who was exposed to systematic abuse without an appropriate response from the competent authorities, with judicial authorities and the police now accusing one another of different omissions.

The court in Gradačac said on Monday it could not sanction the murderer because the police had not documented his violence against his former wife and could therefore not impose a restraining order on him.

“We demand that the responsibility of police officials and judicial office-holders be established and that they be appropriately sanctioned,” Karić said, presenting demands on behalf of the protesters in Sarajevo.

The two men killed by Sulejmanović last Friday will be buried on Tuesday, and the governments of BiH’s two entities have declared Wednesday a day of mourning in their territory.

The decisions were made at the entity level after Serb ministers in the BiH Council of Ministers earlier in the day voted against adopting a decision to that effect at the state level.