Many citizens gathered in Kamičani to see off the remains of the victims who were exhumed in the mass graves of Hrastova Glavica and Jakarina Kosa.
This year, the remains of Ferid (Hamdi) Sikirić, born in 1960 in Hambarine in Prijedor, will be buried. He was killed in 1992, and his remains were exhumed in 1998 from the Hrastova Glavica mass grave. He will be buried at the Hambarine Martyr’s Cemetery.
Izet (Adem) Mešić, born in 1960 in Prijedor, and disappeared in May 1992, will also find his final resting place in Kamičani this year. His remains were exhumed in 2001 at the Jakarina Kos site. He will be buried at the Skela Martyr’s Cemetery.
Yesterday, the motorcade with the remains of the Prijedor victims left the Šejkovac Identification Center in Sanski Most, and before arriving in Kamičane, it passed through most of the Krajina towns where numerous citizens saw off the remains of the murdered Prijedor residents, paid their respects and placed flowers on the vehicle.
The third cycling marathon “Bihać – Kozarac” started yesterday from Bihać to Kozarac, in which about 50 cyclists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina participated. This is the third marathon that is being organized with the aim of not forgetting it and not repeating it to anyone. Ermin Lipović, the organizer of the “Bihać – Kozarac” cycling marathon, said that with this ride they are keeping from forgetting the serious crimes that happened in Prijedor in the summer of 1992.
“When it comes to Prijedor, so far the remains of about 80 percent of the victims who were killed in that area have been exhumed, and we are still looking for the remains of about 500 victims, that is, of killed Bosniaks and Croats from the area of Prijedor,” said Emza Fazlić, spokeswoman for the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She reminded that around 3,175 Bosniaks and Croats were killed in the area of Prijedor.
“When it comes to the victims of Prijedor, 102 children and 263 women were also killed. In the identification center of Šejkovac, there are slightly more than 300 remains of victims of the past war. Of this number, around 170 cases are the remains of victims who were buried earlier and for which the process of reassociation is expected, i.e. adding these skeletal remains to the victims buried earlier. There are the remains of another 21 victims who have been identified and who actually they are waiting for burial. The other cases are in various stages of identification. They are mostly incomplete bodies,” explained Fazlić.
The families of the victims who are waiting for the burial have not yet given their consent because these are incomplete skeletal remains, so the families decide to wait a little longer in the hope that additional parts of the skeleton will be found in order to bury the complete body of their loved ones.
From 1992 to 1995, about 50,000 people were expelled from Prijedor, and about 30,000 men, women and children of non-Serb nationality passed through the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps and 54 other places of detention.
The remains of murdered Bosniaks and Croats from Prijedor were found in 501 locations and in 73 mass graves, in the area of 10 municipalities and in three countries, i.e. in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.
Photo: illustration
