The traditional Peace March from Turalic near Kladanj to Susica in Vlasenica marked the 31st anniversary of the closure of the infamous Susica camp, where the army and police of Republika Srpska (RS) forcibly imprisoned, killed, and raped numerous men, women, girls, and children.
Mejra Mejric was born in Vlasenica and worked in a furniture factory until the beginning of the war.
“I was in Susica with three children, two daughters and a son. My son was eight years old, and my daughters were ten. We were there for six days, and then we had to sign that we would never return, and then they picked us up on buses and drove us to Kladanj,” says Mejra Mejric, whose husband stayed in Susica and has not been found to this day.
On that Sunday, September 13th, 1992, the famous Vlasenica family Salaharevic was together for the last time. Neighbors Serbs sent Muhamed and Edin to Susica, and mother Hatidza and minor Nedim to Kladanj. Edin Salaharevic was a junior member of the former Yugoslavia’s basketball team and was supposed to go to training, but his Serb neighbors planned a different fate for him.
“We went to the camp thinking that the Red Cross would come and list the inmates, that we would be saved. That was the last time we were together, and then they separated us, my father and brother were taken to the camp, and my mother and I went toward the bus because we were separated by the Vlasenica Serbs who knew us well. Predrag Bastah was there and a certain number of members of the special unit from Vlasenica, as well as the police, who were all from the city,” Nedim Salaharevic recalls, who buried his brother Edin in 2009, and his father Muhamed in 2019.
Streams of blood flowed in Vlasenica even before the closure of the Susica camp. About 2.500 Bosniaks were killed, that is, one in seven inhabitants. Percentage-wise, the most girls were raped in Vlasenica during the war.
So far, Dragan Nikolic-Jenki, who has since died, has been convicted of crimes, and Predrag Bastah-Car and Dragan Viskovic–Vjetar are in prison. Currently, the trial of Mane Djuric, Radenko Stanic, Goran Garic, and Miroslav Kraljevic, who is the current mayor of the Municipality of Vlasenica, is ongoing in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). However, court processes are too slow, and witnesses are under pressure.
“Looking at the last period, we are amazed by the number of victims who were tortured in the Susica camp and all those unpleasant scenes that happened here in Vlasenica. It’s simple, witnesses under pressure and threats don’t want to talk about these things. It is disastrous for us and not good for the truth, it is not good that the truth is not known,” Zajim Mahmutovic state, president of the Majlis of the Islamic Community of Vlasenica.
In front of the hangar of the Susica camp, a religious program was held, the Fatiha was recited for all the victims of the Serbian crimes, and the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the closure of the Susica camp ended with a tour of the Rakita Martyr’s Cemetery in Vlasenica.
