Local Justice Bihac: Information about a Mass Grave
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Members of the Bihac Office of the Institute for Search for the Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina visited the former military barracks locality on December 9, after having been informed by Republika Srpska Army, VRS members that 26 Bosniak civilians were inside the warehouse, when it was blown up in the autumn of 1994.
A few days ago we received a piece of information from former VRS members, indicating that a mass grave could potentially be located inside the Racic military barracks.
According to the information, the grave may contain the remains of 26 Bosniak victims, said Mujo Begic, Manager of the Bihac Office of the Institute for Search for the Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Begic explained that Bosniaks from Bihac municipality were held in a detention camp inside the military barracks in the period from 1992 to 1994. He said that, as a consequence of that detention camp, a mass grave was found in Tihotina chasm. He said that, in 2001 the remains of 53 victims were exhumed from that grave, adding that 51 of them have been identified.
The Institute for the Search for the Missing Persons is still trying to trace a certain number of missing persons, who were held in this detention camp. Dzafer Mesic, who was transferred and taken back to the detention camp a few times, is one of them. It is highly probably, according to the available indications, that the information we have got is correct, Begic said.
In the few coming days the Institute will formally initiate the procedure for defining and obtaining an order for exhumation at this locality.
Data available to the Institute suggest that more than a hundred persons, who were subjected to torture and murders, were held in Racic detention camp.
According to our discoveries, this was one of the most notorious detention camps. Detainees were taken to Tihotina and killed in several stages during 1992. There are no witnesses who survived Racic detention camp. The last survivor died two years ago, Begic said.Dz.D.
