Day of white ribbons Prijedor

"Citizens of Serbian nationality, join your army and police in pursuit of extremists. Other citizens, of Muslim and Croatian nationality, must hang white flags on their houses and apartments and put white ribbons on their hands. Otherwise, they will suffer severe consequences", is the message that was heard from Radio Prijedor at the time. – source, klix

During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, 3,176 civilians, mostly of non-Serb nationality, were killed in Prijedor. So far, the remains of around 2,500 people from Prijedor have been found, and more than 550 victims are still being searched for, reports Anadolu.

The citizens of Prijedor are still fighting to build a monument for the 102 murdered Prijedor children. And after more than three decades it has not been done. White Ribbon Day will be celebrated in Prijedor on Friday. Namely, May 31, 1992 was marked as a black day in the history of the city of Prijedor.

The symbolism of the white ribbons reminds us of the days of May 1992, when the Bosnian Serb authorities ordered all Bosniaks and Croats in Prijedor to hang white sheets on their windows, and to tie white ribbons around their arms if they went outside. Non-Serbs in Prijedor were marked in this way. After that, mass arrests, murders and rapes began.

From 1992 to 1995, about 50,000 people were expelled from Prijedor, and about 30,000 men, women and children of non-Serb nationality passed through the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps and 54 other places of detention.

• Attack on Hambarine on May 23 –

Jasmin Medić, doctor of historical sciences and research associate at the Institute of History of the University of Sarajevo, is a native of Kozarac, and his father was killed at Korićanske stijene. He spoke about the white tapes, the camps in the Prijedor area, but also the attacks that began before May 31.

"It is very important to emphasize that on April 30, the Serbian Democratic Party, with the help of the Yugoslav People’s Army, took power in Prijedor. Then she appointed people from the Serbian Democratic Party or people who were close to the SDS to leading positions in the municipality"Medić told Anadolu.

He also reminded that on May 21 and 22, 1992, a decision was made on the general mobilization of the Serbian population, and on May 23, there was an attack on the village of Hambarine, where the Bosniak population was in the absolute majority.

"After that, from May 24 to 26, the area of ​​Kozarac was attacked, and in the same period the Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm camps were formed. Then, on May 27, the village of Briševo, a Croatian village, was shelled, and on May 30, a group of Bosnian patriots tried, after seeing what was happening to the Bosniak and Croat population, to liberate Prijedor and return it to the 1990 election winners."explained Medić.

They did not succeed, so the campaign continued on May 30 "cleaning". Then came the attack on the Old Town, a part of Prijedor where Bosniaks were also in the majority.

"A day later, a decision was made that the citizens of Prijedor, meaning Bosniaks and Croats, all those who are not loyal to the Serbian authorities, should hang white flags on their households and wear white armbands when moving around the city. By May 31, 1992, several hundred Bosniaks and Croats, especially from the area of ​​Kozarac, were killed. Camps had already been formed and murders had already been recorded in certain camps, especially in Omarska. Therefore, this narrative, which is current today in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, that the crimes in Prijedor began on May 31, is completely wrong. It is completely wrong to claim that the crimes in Prijedor began on May 31, because the Serbian nationalists’ perception wants to present the beginning of the conflict in Prijedor as May 30, when Prijedor was allegedly attacked by, as they say, Muslim and Croatian extremists"said Medic.

He pointed out that the crimes began with the attack on Hambarine on May 23.

• 30,000 Bosniaks and Croats passed through the camps –

Speaking about the camps Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm, he stated that according to the data so far, more than 30,000 Bosniaks and Croats from the area of ​​the municipality of Prijedora were imprisoned in those camps.

"The largest number of detainees was in the Trnopolje camp, and this is what the report of the Serbian Red Cross of the municipality of Prijedor says. In his report on September 30, 1992, he stated that during the existence of Trnopolje, 23,000 civilians were imprisoned. Between 3,000 and 3,500 detainees were in the Omarska and Keraterm camps. During the period of existence of the Omarska camp, from May until its final dissolution on August 21, 1992, according to the results of the research so far, 458 Bosniaks and Croats were killed. In the same period, there was also the Keraterm camp, which was officially dissolved on August 6, 1992, and according to previous research, 361 civilians were killed there."Medić reminded.

The Trnopolje camp functioned a little longer, until November 1992.

"It is the camp with the largest number of detainees in Bosnia and Herzegovina – about 23,000 civilians. On August 21, the inmates were taken out of that camp and killed on Korićanske stijene. With the number of people killed in the camp, we will get data on about 250 inmates killed in Trnopolje, in that number we also include people who were taken out of Trnopolje and killed on Korićanske stijene"said Medic.

He is of the opinion that about Prijedor in Bosnia and Herzegovina. the public was almost never told until the discovery of the Tomašica mass grave.

"So the Day of White Ribbons and all that initiative of the people who organize it to build memorials to the murdered children in Prijedor, still attracted some attention. However, that is not enough. Prijedor, we can conclude after 32 years, has been significantly neglected in Bosnia and Herzegovina. to the public. Zvornik, Foča, Rogatica, Bratunac, all those municipalities where mass crimes were committed, and I can freely say with elements of genocide, were also neglected."emphasized Medić.

• Still denying the white stripes –

The Day of the White Ribbons is celebrated, however, the problems of the Bosniaks in that area are still there.

"Some organizations that obviously enjoy the support of the ruling structures in Prijedor, deny the white armbands, deny that Bosniaks and Croats were forced to wear white armbands in 1992, not respecting people’s testimonies. You have witnesses who had to wear white armbands, who testified about it and that is an indisputable fact. And any discussion with the deniers of the white ribbons puts you in a situation where you have to descend to their primitive level, because these same people want to deny the existence of the camps as well"said Medić for AA.

He believes that, despite everything, Prijedor is compared to many other municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. entity Republika Srpska, nevertheless made some progress.

"You also have a certain number of Serbs who want to confront the past, the marking of white stripes is not prohibited, it is limited in some way, but not prohibited. However, even that is not enough. It is very strange to me that from 1992 until today you have such a small number of Serbs from Prijedor who want to face the past. Prijedor was known for its anti-fascist struggle in the Second World War, and it is inconceivable to me that such crimes were committed in 1992."said Medic.

For him personally, the white ribbons are a symbol of what was committed in Prijedor in 1992.

"I think it is good that the white ribbon is a symbol of crime, call it whatever you want, whether crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide in Prijedor. But I also have to emphasize that it is very important to say that there is this prehistory of white stripes. So, before the decision on white ribbons, crimes were committed in Kozarac, that camps were already formed, that Briševo, the Old Town of Prijedor, was attacked…", concluded Medić. – source, AA

• Mass grave in Tomašica –

In the area of ​​Prijedor during the summer of 1992, more than 3,000 persons of Bosniak and Croat nationality were killed.

Almost thousands of them are still being searched for 30 years later, and the bodies of those killed have been found in more than 60 locations of mass graves.

Among the largest mass graves in Bosnia and Herzegovina are Tomašica, Korićanske stene and Jakarina kosa, in which most of the remains of the inhabitants of Prijedor and the surrounding area were found.

The largest tomb in the region – Tomašica has no markings and nothing reminds that more than 400 mortal remains were exhumed from that tomb. The information about this grave was given by a person who did not participate in the crime but did in moving the body.

The second larger tomb is at Korićanske stijene. Information about it was provided by a person convicted of crimes committed in that place. Prisoners from Prijedor were killed on Korićanske stijene, and it is also called a stone tomb.

The tomb at Korićani was discovered in 2017. The remains of 192 people were found in it

And while families are still looking for hundreds of their loved ones, the Institute for Searching for the Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina says that there is less and less information about the new locations of the graves.

Before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 21 people were sentenced to more than 360 years in prison for crimes against the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor. The Hague Tribunal sentenced 18 people to 276 years in prison. -source, AlJazeera

Tomašica is the largest mass grave in the Balkans, where around 800 victims were buried, and according to established practice, the bodies were dug up again and transferred to secondary mass graves, and sometimes afterwards to tertiary ones.