The 33rd anniversary of the Trnopolje concentration camp in Prijedor was marked today with a speech, flower-laying ceremony and tributes to the victims. Former concentration camp inmates expressed their disappointment today over the failure to enact a law on concentration camp inmates and the inadequate marking of former execution sites.
The Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm camps were established by decision of the Serbian authorities, namely the Crisis Staff of the then Prijedor municipality.
According to the Hague Tribunal, around 23,000 people passed through Trnopolje, making it the largest mass camp in which civilians were detained since World War II.
It was discovered on 5 August 1992, when British reporters took photographs of starving inmates behind the wire. On 21 August, around 200 inmates were taken out of the Trnopolje concentration camp, who were later killed at the Korićanske stijene site on Vlašić.
Several hundred inmates from this and other Prijedor camps were shot by members of the Prijedor police intervention squad at Korićanske stijene on Vlašić, where only a few individuals survived by jumping into the abyss, just before the shooting.
The Hague Tribunal established that this was also a camp where women and girls were raped.
The Hague Tribunal sentenced 17 people to 276 years in prison for crimes in Prijedor. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced 28 people to more than 430 years in prison for crimes against the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor.
