Bahrija Jakupovic from Kozarac was 23 years old when, in August 1992, he was assigned to a convoy of camp inmates from “Trnopolje” who were going to be exchanged towards Travnik, and more than 200 of them were then killed in the locality of Koricanske stijene.
In the convoy of buses and trucks at that moment there were about 1,200 inmates from Prijedor, civilians of non-Serb nationality, who were being escorted by members of the Prijedor Police Intervention Unit.
The column was stopped in the Ugra canyon, and Jakupovic was assigned with about 220 other people to get into the buses that were headed for Koricanske stijene, about 15 kilometers from the then Skender-Vakuf. He explains how they were kicked out of the bus when they arrived at the Koricanske stijene site.
“They lined us up in two rows. We were facing the precipice and had to crouch. I was in the second row. I didn’t know what was happening then. They said something like, ‘the living for the living, the dead for the dead’, and then they started shooting at us. Moans were heard everywhere. There was one in front of me. I knocked him down and I jumped after him. Now that I see how deep it is, I might not even jump,” Jakupovic explained.
As he said, he fell down the precipice, but fortunately, he was not injured and was able to get back on his feet. At the bottom of the ravine, he saw that there was an old mill, where he waited for the police officers who were escorting them to leave.
“The moans of people who were not yet dead could be heard. I went back to see if anyone was still alive. However, those who escorted us also returned, shooting down and throwing bombs. I hid behind a rock. Someone shouted from a nearby hill: ‘There are still people alive.’ They shot at me, but I managed to escape,” added Jakupovic.
Jakupovic is one of about 10 people who survived the shooting at Koricanske stijene on August 21st, 1992. After surviving the shooting, he wandered around for two days and was caught again and taken to the hospital in Banja Luka, and not long after that he was exchanged through the Red Cross.
Today, as he says, it was only the second time since then that he came to the place where he survived by sheer luck, and together with his fellow citizens, he paid tribute to those killed in this locality.
In memory of this crime, several hundred citizens threw roses and wreaths into the pit where the inmates were killed.
Darko Mrdja, a former member of the Intervention Platoon of the Prijedor Public Security Station, was sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal for this crime, after pleading guilty, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
