The 32nd anniversary of the beginning of the dissolution of the Omarska death concentration camp near Prijedor will be celebrated today in the organization of the Regional Union of Associations of Prisoners of the Banja Luka Region, the Association of Prisoners “Prijedor 92” and the Association of Prisoners “Kozarac”.
From May to August 1992, when the last detainee left Omarska, more than 3,300 civilians, Croats and Bosniaks from the area of Prijedor and its surroundings, were imprisoned in the camp, and about 800 of them did not survive the torture. There were also 37 women in the camp, five of whom were killed. There were also 28 minors in the camp.
The camps Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm were established by the decision of the Crisis Staff of the Prijedor municipality at the time, and they were officially founded in May 1992 by the chief of police in Prijedor, Simo Drljača, against whom the tribunal in The Hague brought an indictment after the war. Drljaca died during the arrest attempt.
For crimes committed in camps in the area of Prijedor, 11 people were convicted in The Hague, and four more before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina after their case was transferred from The Hague Tribunal.
At the beginning of August 1992, American and British journalists Roy Gutman, Penny Marshall, Ed Vulliamy and Ian Williams discovered the Prijedor camps, after which their dissolution began.
The first trial and the first verdict before the Hague Tribunal were precisely for the crimes committed in the Omarska camp. Because of the mass rape in this camp of imprisoned female inmates, rape was characterized as a war crime for the first time in judicial practice.
A number of inmates from the Omaraska camp were killed at Korićanske stijene, some at Hrastova glavica, and many succumbed to torture, BHRT writes.
