”The fight for justice and truth is a long process, but one should not give up on it, with constant testimonies of the horrors suffered, ” is one of the key messages to Ukrainians from the survivors of the war in the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
News about raped Ukrainian women, pictures of mothers and wives in Ukraine in search of loved ones, and refugees with children bring memories of the most horrific moments of the suffering of women in the war in BiH.
Nusreta Sivac was one of 36 prisoners at the Omarska camp near Prijedor in western BiH from April to August 1992.
She testified before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and even today she is testifying in the trials at the Court of BiH about the rape and torture she and other women survived in that camp.
Sivac tells Radio Free Europe (RFE) that “rape of women is one of the weapons of war”. She emphasized that she sympathizes with Ukrainian women, and tells them that the most important thing is to endure everything they go through.
“It is a model copied there in Ukraine, that women are raped. I would tell them to gather strength, so when they have the opportunity, it may be dangerous now and it is not appropriate to talk at this time, to testify about it,” Nusreta Sivac explained.
Understanding for women of Ukraine
Sivac said that she could not believe that a new brutal war would break out in Europe thirty years after the most horrific crimes that could be seen in BiH and Prijedor.
“Just like now in Ukraine, we heard at the beginning that rape of women was happening in BiH, but when the war stopped and the situation calmed down, then we had the opportunity to hear more about it and in more detail, where it happened, and in what way. Unfortunately, it happened to all women, no matter in which part of BiH they were. Here in Prijedor, most of it happened in concentration camps, since Prijedor is also recognizable for the suffering of people in concentration camps,” noted Sivac.
Reports from international actors in BiH estimate that between 20.000 and 50.000 women, girls, and men were raped between 1992 and 1995.
Document crimes to achieve justice
Mirsad Tokaca, director of the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo, thinks that all possible evidence of crimes committed must continue to be collected in Ukraine.
No matter what the results of this aggression will be, they must dedicate themselves to documenting war crimes. They have prosecutors’ offices, courts, police bodies, non-governmental organizations, and now an international commission that has been formed. These days, I talked to some members of the commission and offered them our help and experience. Now there are opportunities. This is the 21st century and you can seehow communication is developed. We did not have that in ’92,” Tokaca stated.
Aida Cerkez, a Sarajevan who was a journalist for the Associated Press during the war, sent a similar message. She wrote this in a letter to Ukrainians, published by the BBC in early March and reported by many world media:
“Write down and record everything. One day it will define your history, it will explain to Ukrainians who are yet to be born what happened and it will most likely be used as evidence in court against those who are trying to kill you.
Investigations into crimes in Ukraine have already begun
According to the War Crimes Trials Database in BiH, 943 people have been convicted of war crimes in BiH so far, in almost 700 cases. These data were collected from a total of 21 courts prosecuting crimes committed in BiH during the war, including the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague has announced that he will launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine, RSE writes.
E.Dz.
