Today is the Day of White Ribbons, in memory of more than 3,000 killed in the Prijedor municipality from 1992 to 1995.
The survivors of Prijedor will also mark this May 31st with a central event on the City Square, where they will lay 102 roses with the names of the murdered children.
On May 31, 1992, the Serbian authorities in Prijedor issued an order via local radio ordering the non-Serb population to mark their houses with white flags or sheets, and to put white bands around their sleeves when leaving their houses.
“Citizens of Serbian nationality, join your army and police in pursuit of these extremists. Other citizens, of Muslim and Croatian nationality, must hang white flags on their houses and apartments and put white ribbons on their hands. Otherwise, he will bear severe consequences,” the order said.
According to official information from the victims’ association, 3,176 civilians were killed in Prijedor, while 31,000 people were imprisoned in camps around Prijedor. The Research and Documentation Center from Sarajevo states that from 1991 to 1995, 5,209 citizens of Prijedor were killed or disappeared in direct military actions, of which 4,093 were Bosniaks, 898 were Serbs, and 182 were Croats.
So far, more than 50 verdicts have been handed down for crimes committed in the Prijedor municipality and over 400 mass graves have been discovered, including Tomašica, the largest mass grave in the Balkans, discovered in 2013.
