prijava
PRIJDOR, May 31 (FENA) - Prijedor, but also the entire world, today remembers 3,176 killed citizens of Prijedor, non-Serb civilians, including 102 children.
"White Ribbon Day - May 31", which has long outgrown Prijedor and Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be marked this year by a symbolic gathering of Prijedor survivors at the City Square at 12.00. The traditional quite protest walk, however, was not approved.
President of the Regional Alliance of Associations of Concentration Camp Inmates of Banja Luka region and former inmate of Omarska, Manjača and Trnopolje camps Mirsad Duratović told FENA that this year focus will be on 102 murdered children of Prijedor and parents' initiative to erect a memorial to murdered children in the center of Prijedor, even though city authorities have been refusing to do that for a long time.
Speaking about the verdicts for crimes committed in Prijedor, Duratović said that more than 50 final verdicts have been passed so far, and that the criminals have been sentenced to more than 800 years in prison. Some criminals have been convicted two or even three times.
He added there are still more than 30 cases being processed in Court of BiH, adding he hopes other war criminals will answer for their actions.
He added there is nothing in Prijedor today to remind of 3 000 murdered people. In contrast, monuments and memorial plaques were erected with photographs and names of former employees of companies and institutions who were members of the RS Army and who died somewhere at the front line during the aggression on BiH. According to Duratović, there is no place for members of other nationalities.
"Monument was built for killed soldiers of the RS army in Trnopolje concentration camp, with photos of killed soldiers in rooms where inmates were killed, women and girls raped," he emphasized.
All these activities, he said, send a clear message that the returnees are not welcome in Prijedor and that only one history can be written in Prijedor, and that is history written according to the perpetrators of crimes.
He assessed that the international community is trying to create conditions for the return of the expelled, and at the same time it does not react to the "suppression of freedom of speech".
Duratović lost everything on 20th July 1992, when most of his family was killed at his doorstep, his father, brother, grandparents, uncles and cousins, 47 of them. Mirsad was lucky to survive a human shield and was then taken to Omarska concentration camp, then to Manjača and Trnopolje.
On May 31, 1992, Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor issued an order via local radio ordering non-Serbs to mark their homes with white flags or sheets, and to wear white ribbons around their sleeves as they left their homes.
The crimes in Prijedor began with attacks by Serb forces on Bosniak settlements on Mataruški brdo on May 22, followed by attacks on Kozarac on May 24 and the opening of the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps between May 26 and 30. That is how the crimes in Prijedor began, with the population being taken to camps, mass executions and other crimes.
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