In rememberance of the persecution and murder of 3,176 citizens of Prijedor and the surrounding area, several organizations led by the representative of the parents of the murdered children of Prijedor, Fikret Bacic, will mark “White Ribbon Day” on May 31.
Although several thousand family members and friends of those killed and citizens attend the commemoration every year, Bacic confirmed for Fena news agency that they were allowed to gather up to 50 people due to the pandemic. He pointed out that in Prijedor, the marking will be attended by representatives of the organizations “Quarter”, “Because it concerns me”, “Sharp Zero” and several other friendly organizations, and the marking of White Ribbon Day announced in Sarajevo, Kakanj, Tuzla, as well as the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and France.
Bacic emphasizes that the commemoration itself will be symbolic as every year, with a peaceful walk and laying flowers for 102 killed children from Prijedor, but that the message they want to send is very strong, and that is to point out to all institutions, domestic and international, that the Republika Srpska authorities they still discriminate against returnees and that they do not have the same rights as Serb citizens.
“We do not have the right to make a memorial to our killed children, even though they built dozens without any arguments or evidence,” he pointed out.
Last year, hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of 86 Muslim victims of a massacre committed in Prijedor by Bosnian Serb forces at the beginning of the 1990s Bosnian war.
The remains of the victims, mostly male and many teenagers, were found in 2017 in a mass grave at Koricanske Stijene, a mountain region of central Bosnia.
The remains were found at the bottom of a cliff, in a natural pit, and were covered by an enormous amount of stones.
The victims were part of a group of more than 200 civilians, notably Bosnian Muslims, but also several Catholic Croats, previously held in a detention camp at Trnopolje, in the region of Prijedor.
On August 21, 1992, they were loaded onto buses, officially for a prisoner exchange.
Remains of 80 killed camp detainees have not been found to this day, reminded Jasmin Mešković, President of the Association of Camp Detainees in BiH. He said that truth about remains of the killed at Korićanske stijene must be revealed, so that the families could find their peace.
After the bodies of camp detainees fell into the pit, members of the intervention squad of the police of RS continued shooting them and throwing bombs, so that no one would survive. Twelve people survived the massacre and their testimonies contributed to the punishing of some of the responsible ones. They helped record the truth about this crime.
It is still being searched for 80 percent of remains, because bodies of the killed camp detainees were transported and buried at other localities, which is testified by recordings of the Service for Public Safety Prijedor from September 4, 1992. However, those responsible for this crime and those who participated in the transportation of bodies (members of the police of RS and civil protection from Skender Vakuf) are still silent about the location of the bodies.
