Scores of Visegrad Victims Found in Lake

The remains of 60 people have been found since the search began on July 19, a spokesman for the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia said on Tuesday.

Amor Masovic, the Chairman of the Institute’s Board of Directors, told Balkan Insight: “All of them were thrown into the lake in Visegrad or a few kilometres farther in Muhici and Kurtalici, where they had been killed.

“The bodies then floated downstream on the Drina river to Bajina Basta hydroelectric power plant, then stopped … hooked on branches or stuck in the shallow mud and sand.”

Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in the May 1992 action by Serb police and military forces during the Bosnian war.

Divers are searching for more corpses of Albanians from Kosovo that were found in a refrigerator truck in the lake in 2001.

Masovic said that, although the truck’s chassis had been found, there was so far no sign of any remains.

Dozens of bodies from the truck were exhumed in 2003, but it was believed more may be in the lake as the vehicle’s door were open.
 
Masovic confirmed that representatives of missing persons commissions from Serbia and Kosovo had joined the Institute team on Monday, and teams had jointly visited an eight-kilometre stretch of Perucac lake.
 
The Institute team is searching the lake while the water level is lower than usual, as the power plant in Bajina Basta is being repaired, he added.
 
The team say they have faced numerous problems in the field including landslides, minefields and other incidents.
 
Someone shot at the Institute’s team members from Blace village, near Visegrad, about 10 days after they began the search. 

The perpetrators have still not been identified.

 
In verdicts passed down at the Hague Tribunal, judges have described the Visegrad atrocities as one of the “most notorious campaigns for the deportation of Bosniaks”.

They said hundreds of men, women and children were killed on various bridges and dumped into the Drina river within over a period of one month.
 
The Tribunal sentenced Mitar Vasiljevic, a former member of  the“White Eagles” paramilitary group, to 15 years in prison for crimes committed in the area.

It also sentenced Milan Lukic, a former leader of the group, to life imprisonment and Sredoje Lukic to 30 years in prison.

M.H.