Koricanske Stijene Slaughter Remembered With Flowers
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Throwing 250 roses into the pit at Koricanske Stijene, victims’ families marked the 21st anniversary of the murder of people from Prijedor at Mt Vlasic in August 1992.
Representatives of victims and relatives of those killed on August 21, 1992 threw roses into the abyss at Koricanske Stijene on Wednesday.
They thereby commemorated the deaths of their fellow citizens killed by members of the Intervention Squad of the Prijedor police who separated over 150 men from a convoy and executed them.
Sabahudin Garibovic said he survived the mass execution because he never left the bus. “I stayed behind in the bus when they told us to go out to be exchanged,” he said.
“I did not go out; seven of us stayed on the bus. After, they filled our bus with women and children from trucks that were following us and we resumed the trip,” Garibovic recalled.
Zumra Zaimovic, 77, lost her son at Koricanske Stijene, who was 32 at the time.
“He was brought for exchange in 1992 and here is where he was exchanged,” she said.
“Exchanged for death. I come here every year. I found nothing, not a single bone. It seems to me that it would be easier if I buried him; I would at least know where he is,” Zaimovic added.
Representatives of victims association expressed bitterness about the refusal of the local Bosnian Serb authorities to allow the erection of a memorial plaque.
“The crime against these people who were killed in 1992 or disappeared never stopped by the mere fact that they don’t have their own identity and place of burial,” Edin Ramulic, an activist of the “Izvor” association, said. “A landfill is being made out of this place. People from Knezevo dump their garbage here,” he added.
During exhumations at Koricanske Stijene, the remains of 141 people were found, 118 of which were identified. Only 55 remains have been taken by the families and buried.
Eight former members of the Prijedor police have been convicted before Bosnia’s State Court and the Hague Tribunal for the crime at Koricanske Stijene.
