Associations of Prison Camp Inmates of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from Prijedor and its surroundings marked the 31st anniversary of the closure of the Omarska camp, through which 6.000 Bosniaks and Croats passed from May 25th to August 30th, 1992, of whom, according to the Association’s data, 700 were killed.
The “Omarska” camp, as well as the “Keraterm” and “Trnopolje” camps, was formed on May 26th, 1992 by the decision of the Crisis Staff of the then Municipality of Prijedor.
“I come almost every year and every time I come back, I experience the same scenes, especially in the next room where I got a terrible beating, the floor was bloody, then they made us kneel, with the order, to come out like dogs while we are bloody… It was raining, so we washed in a puddle. They said that the children picked strawberries and got dirty. Omarska must be a real factory of death. It is difficult when you come to the martyr’s cemeteries in Prijedor, I came yesterday, and when you see the names of people and neighbors and friends who are no longer there. And then you come to the execution ground where they were killed… There were corpses around the white house every day. We recognized each other by our clothes, we were there on the runway, they brought us after lunch,” says Rezak Hukanovic, a survivor of the camp.
The first trial and the first verdict before the Hague Tribunal were for crimes committed in this camp.
Due to the mass rape of female inmates, rape was characterized as a war crime for the first time in judicial practice.
Some of the inmates of the “Omarska” camp were killed at Koricani Cliffs, some at Hrastova Glavica, and many succumbed to torture.
“It’s good that they allow us to come at least one day a year. It’s not good that Vucic comes and mentions the four children in Bosanski Petrovac. I was with mother Hava this morning, she alone had six sons killed… I respect every victim, but Prijedor is the city that suffered the most. There was no war in Prijedor, but almost 4.000 people were killed. There was no war, but there were three infamous camps – Trnopolje, Omarska, and Keraterm, there was no war, and the largest post-war mass grave – Tomasica, they say they are on the trail of other graves. Their conscience should be awakened because many were discovered by Serbs who could no longer bear it on their conscience,” Hukanovic stated.
About 6.000 non-Serbian citizens of Prijedor were imprisoned in the “Omarska” camp, and 700 of them were killed. There were also 37 women and 28 minors in the camp.
At the beginning of August 1992, well-known United States (U.S.) and United Kingdom (UK) journalists Roy Gutman, Penny Marshall, Ed Vulliamy, and Ian Williams discovered the Prijedor camps, after which their closure began.
E.Dz.
