BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: PRISON CAMPS: OMARSKA / TRNOPOLJE:
6.8.92 ITN has gained exclusive access to some of the Serbian-run
TX detention camps in Bosnia which are at the centre of persistent
allegations of torture and executions.
Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by Bosnian Serb forces, in Omarska, a mining town near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up during the Prijedor massacre for Bosniak and Croat men and women.[1][2] Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centres and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war.[3] While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the non-Serb population,[1] Human Rights Watch classified Omarska as a concentration camp.[4][5]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, has found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska.[6] Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common.[6][7] About 6,000 Bosniaks and Croats were held in appalling conditions at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment beatings and ill-treatment. UN prosecutors compared the camps to those run by Nazis.[2]
The camp existed from about May 25 to about August 21, 1992, where the Serb military and police unlawfully segregated, detained and confined some of more than 7,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats captured in the ethnic cleansing of the municipality of Prijedor. Bosnian Serb authorities termed it an investigation centre and the detainees were accused for alleged paramilitary activities.[8]
By the end of 1992, the war would result in the death or forced departure of most of the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor municipality; about 7,000 people were missing from a population of 25,000, and there are 145 mass graves and hundreds of individual graves in the extended region.[9] There is, however, conflicting information about how many people were killed at this camp. According to the survivors, usually about 30 and sometimes as many as 150 men were singled-out and killed in the camp every night.[10] The U.S. State Department and other governments believe that, at a minimum, hundreds of detainees, whose identities are known and unknown, did not survive; many others were killed during the evacuation of the camps in the area.[8]
Death toll
As part of the ethnic cleansing operations, these four camps helped the Crisis Committee of the Serbian District of Prijedor to reduce the non-Serb population of Prijedor from more than 50,000 in 1992 to little more than 3,000 in 1995, and even fewer subsequently.[14] While precise calculations about the number who actually died in these camps are difficult to make, US State Department officials, along with representatives of other Western governments, have estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 people perished at Omarska.[4]
A member of the United Nations (UN) Commission of Experts testified during the Duško Tadić trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that their number was in the thousands, but she could not be precise, despite the fact that Serbian officials confirmed there were no large scale releases of prisoners sent there. A member of the Crisis Committee, Simo Drljača, who served as chief of police for Prijedor, has stated that there were 6,000 "
Loading...
5:47
BOSNIA NATO ATTACKS -31.8.95by bolitekura123321790 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)