The Day of missing people was marked symbolically, all over the country, with black balloons with the inscription “Where is”. In BiH, nearly 7,000 people are still missing and the process of finding them is getting slower in the last few years.
In Prijedor, 620 black balloons with the names of Prijedor civilians who are still missing, were symbolically released. Dzevida Trnjanin from Kozarac is still looking for her parents Dzevad and Hajrija Alic. She said that they have no information where they could be buried.
“It is about the time to find them, to know where they are. I really do not have any clues, and it is hard for me to talk about it, but I am still hoping,” said Trnjanin.
The process of searching and finding mass graves in BiH is very slow in recent years. It is difficult to get the information about places where remains could be hiding. From the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH noted that the reason for that is impure conscience of executors, witnesses of crime, as well as intelligence officers and officers who were not involved in the crimes.
“They are hiding documents on crimes, notices, information in their drawers, and you will often hear that they are not happy with the work of the Institute while at the same time, while giving you such a statement, they have documents in their drawers that could lead us, and the families, directly to the locations of mass graves,” said Amor Masovic.
Although the process of searching for missing people has been rated as very good by many world institutions compared to other countries, it will never be fast enough for the families of the missing people.
“We must not forget that the families of 12,000 missing people are still looking for their family members. We cannot expect society to return to normal when there are still so many people missing,” said Matthew Holliday, the Head of the ICMP program for Western Balkans.
According to the I, about 40,000 people are missing after the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the largest number, about 30,000 of them, are missing in BiH. The families of the missing people are still wondering where they are.
(Source: N1)
