#omarska

omarska 2022

Today is an anniversary that is not even round. 27 years ago, on the night of 29/30 April, there was a takeover of power in the Bosnian region of Prijedor. For nearly a year, local radio and television have been already broadcasting Serbian nationalist programs over and over again, in which the Bosnian and Croatian residents of the city and surrounding villages were called mujahedin or ustasas. The seizure of power was long-planned. The school year in 1992 ended earlier, and the tutor of one of my interlocutors gave away only "See you in autumn with those who survive." This night begins the two-year period of ethnic cleansing of the region - estimated as the second after Srebrenica in terms of the number of victims of the operation of systematic displacement, looting, collecting and murdering civilians in today's Bosnia. 3,515 Bosnian Muslims and 186 Croats were killed. After the war, 96 mass graves were located in this region. Entire cities, like Kozarac, disappeared from the face of the earth. Most of the population covered by the systematic purge passed through the Omarska, Keraterm or Trnopolje camps. In the White House in Omarska people were killed without guns, only by beatings and torture. Every day, the guards were reading the names of the prisoners who had to report to the White House. According to the testimonies of witnesses, about one in a hundred of those who were called managed to survive. On St. Peter's day, the guards arranged a bonfire, and then they threw people into it, alive. Volunteers from the city came to help, there was a lot of singing and drinking. ICTY estimates that 170 people were murdered that evening. Before the war, nearly fifty thousand Muslims lived in Prijedor, accounting for more than half of the population. Currently, 29,000 inhabitants are a legally recognized minority, with 56 thousand citizens of the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina living in the Prijedor region. More than a thousand civilians are still missing today. The current owner of Omarska, an international concern Arcelor Mittal, did everything for two months to deny me entrance to the plant. After the fact, I learned that the White House does not even belong to them. In the longer version of the description of my documentary about Bosnia, there are a few sentences stating that the reasons for all of this seem to be much more universal than one might want. Resentment, nationalism, a distorted vision of history, a specific idea of national interest, paramilitary militia taking over a radio transmitter. I do not believe in the mission of photography, but if it inclines someone to reflect, and this to counteract - something important has been done. Remember Prijedor, about which you will never learn a sentence at a Polish school.

omarska 2022

Subjects reported that during the Serbian holiday of Petrodan (St. Peter's Day) in 1992, prisoners were beaten and then thrown alive into a fire made from the large rubber tires from the excavating trucks previously used at the mine. It was reported that on that day, volunteers from the town came to the camp to participate. There was reportedly a lot of singing, drinking, and at one point the guards had the idea to set fire to the big truck tires in the yard and to throw the prisoners onto the bonfire. One subject reported that on 12 July, prisoners saw through a window that the guards had made a fire with old rubber tires and were trying to force prisoners to jump into it. He stated that when the prisoners resisted, the guards pulled them by their hair and beat them with shovels. He described continued beatings and abuse by the next guard shift. Other reports appear to describe the same or similar incidents described above. (source: ICRC Final Report, Annex VIII: Camps) Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the first visit of the international press in Omarska and Trnopolje camps in northern Bosnia. Omarska was closed shortly after, and this day is being regarded to as an anniversary to the victims of Omarska camp. There’s no memorial in the compound, and 6th of August is the only day in the year where families are granted access to the site where their relatives were killed. Besides that, Omarska operates as an iron ore mine, and is the property of Arcelor Mittal company.

Survivors of Bosnian Serb Camp Mark Omarska’s Closure | Balkan Insight

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