With the laying of flowers and an address by the representatives of the association, today in Visegrad, 34 years will be marked since the crime that was remembered as a “living bonfire”. Then more than 70 Bosniak civilians were set on fire in the house of Meho Aljić in Bikavac.
As determined by the verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), members of the paramilitary formation led by Milan Lukić burned alive about 70 civilians of Bosniak nationality, among whom were mostly women, children and the elderly, in the house of Meha Aljić in the locality of Bikavac.
Another 467 people are being sought in the Visegrad area
The president of the Association ‘Woman Victim of War’ from Višegrad, Bakira Hasečić, recalls the exhumation from 2016 in the house of Meha Aljić, when two or three bones were found next to the sidewalk that were burned and from which DNA could not be determined and whose they belonged to.
“Unfortunately, not a single bone has been found to date. Visegrad is silent and I am very sorry for that,” – says Hasečić.
According to her, all of this greatly affects the families of those burned alive, especially the fact that only Milan Lukić was convicted of that crime, although it is known who else was there, and some of them are still in Visegrad.
Emza Fazlić from the Institute for the Missing Persons of BiH confirmed for Detektor that 467 more people are being searched for in the Višegrad area, while 453 people have been identified.
Only one person survived the crime
Only Zehra Turjačanin, who later testified at the ICTY, survived that crime.
The crime in Bikavac was committed only 13 days after the “living bonfire”, in Pionirska Street on June 14, 1992. At that time, around 60 civilians from the Koritnik settlement were burned in the house of Adem Omeragić, among whom there were also women, children, including newborns, and the elderly.
The Hague Tribunal sentenced Milan Lukić to life imprisonment for crimes in Višegrad, including “live bonfires” in Pionirska Street and Bikavac. The verdict stated that Serbian forces forced civilians into Aljić’s house in Bikavac, then shot into the interior and threw hand grenades inside and set the house on fire, according to the Balkan Research Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH).
