submitted a report to Mihailović in January that 33 Muslim villages were burned and 1,000 women and children killed. In February, Đurišić reported that around 8,000 women, children, and elderly were killed. The casualties would have been higher if a part of the local population had not fled to Sarajevo prior to the offensive. Đurišić emphasized that "during the operation the total destruction of the Muslim inhabitants was carried out regardless of sex and age". In the districts of Pljevlja, Čajniče, and Foča, "all Muslim villages [...] were totally burned so that not a single home remained in one piece." He noted that action should be taken to prevent the return of refugees. From 4–7 February, 576 Muslim civilians (443 of whom were minors) were massacred in Bukovica, near Pljevlja. In March, 500 Muslim civilians were killed in the Goražde area. The course of cleansing actions of early 1943 indicate that they were a partial implementation of the December 1941 directive. Mihailović listed the Chetnik action in Sandžak as one of his successes, noting that they had "liquidated all Muslims in the villages except those in the small towns". In the Foča region, the Chetniks engaged in forced conversion of Muslims to Orthodoxy. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the anti-Muslim operations commanded by Đurišić between January and February 1943. The casualty rate would have been higher if many Muslims had not already fled the areamost to Sarajevowhen the February action began. Bosniak historian, Šemso Tucaković, estimates that up to 20,000 Muslims may have been killed in the Podrinje area during the 1943 massacres. The Partisan defeat of the Chetniks during the Battle of the Neretva, which routed the Chetnik forces from the Neretva and Drina rivers, largely ended this genocidal assault by March 1943. According to German verified data from the territory within their zone, in six east Bosnian and four central Bosnian districts, 8,400 Croats and 24,400 Muslims were killed by Chetnik forces, making a total of 32,800 people. In some areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Chetnik policy towards Muslims varied between open hostility and attempts to improve relations, similarly to the policy of NDH authorities towards Serbs. These appeals were met with limited success as they were often followed by more massacres. Đurišić threatened the Sandžak Muslims that "it is the last chance" for them to think about their fate and to go over to